Abstract: Objective The aim of this study was to explore the preoperative determination of China liver cancer staging (CNLC) by dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) quantitative parameters in patients with primary liver cancer (PLC). Methods 69 patients with PLC were enrolled in our hospital between January 2021 and January 2023, and all received DCE-MRI examination pre-operationally. The perfusion parameters, such as the transfer constant (K^Trans), rate constant (K_ep) and extravascular extracellular space volume fraction (V_e), were calculated. The CNLC of patients was determined by fine needle aspiration biopsy or postoperative pathology. The receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) was plotted and the area under the curve (AUC) was calculated to evaluate the efficacy of DCE-MRI quantitative parameters in diagnosing the preoperative staging of patients with PLC. Results The 69 patients with PLC were all diagnosed pathologically as hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), and the DCE-MRI scan found the CNLC stageⅠ in 17 cases, stage Ⅱ in 21 cases, stage Ⅲa in 29 cases and stage Ⅲb in 2 cases; the K^Trans and K_ep in patients with stage Ⅲ were (0.4±0.1)min^-1 and (1.2±0.6)min^-1, both significantly higher than , while the V_e was (0.4±0.2), significantly less than in patients with stage Ⅰ/Ⅱ; the AUC was 0.812(95% CI:0.706-0.918), with the sensitivity of 80.6% and the specificity of 65.8%, when the K^Trans and K_ep were combined with the V_e in predicting the CNLC staging in patients with PLC, much superior to any parameter doing alone(P<0.05). Conclusion The quantitative parameters of DCE-MRI scan could to certain extent decide pre-operationally the clinical staging in patients with PLC, which might be a great help for appropriate management in this circumstance.

Key words: Hepatoma, Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging, Quantitative parameters, China liver cancer staging, Diagnosis