Feasibility of Diagnosis in Cruciate Anterior Ligament Injuries in the Knee Using Dual-energy CT

Objective: To explore feasibility of diagnosis in anterior cruciate ligament injuries (ACL) in the knee using dual-energy CT. Methods: 30 patients with trauma in the knee were underwent dual-energy CT and MR examinations, ACL was evaluated on soft tissue CT images, dual-energy tendon-specific color (DETC) images and MR images. MR images were served as the standard of reference; diagnostic predictive values of ACL injuries were evaluated for dual-energy CT images. Result: On MR images, 23 cases had significant ACL injuries, 11 cases had significant ACL injuries on soft tissue CT, and significant ACL injuries were diagnosed in 20 cases using combination of soft tissue CT images and DETC images. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value and diagnostic accuracy were 47.8%, 100.0%, 100.0%, 36.8% and 60.0% for ACL injury using soft tissue CT images, respectively, and these values were 82.6%, 85.7%, 95.0%, 60.0% and 83.3% for ACE injury using combination of soft tissue CT images and DETC images, respectively. Compared with soft tissue CT images, the sensitivity and diagnostic accuracy for ACL injuries using combination of soft tissue CT images and DETC images were all increased significantly (<i<χ</i<<sup<2</sup< values of sensitivity and accuracy were 6.133 and 4.022, respectively, all <i<P</i< values < 0.05). Conclusion: Combination of soft tissue CT images and DETC images can be used to diagnosis in ACL injuries, which has relative high predictive values.