Yang Z, et al. - Among patients with colorectal cancer, researchers studied the performance of quantitative parameters derived from dual-energy CT (DECT) in the preoperative diagnosis of regional metastatic lymph nodes (LNs). In 178 patients with colon or high rectal cancer, triphasic contrast-enhanced DECT was performed. To determine the independent DECT parameters for predicting LN metastasis, univariate and multivariable logistic regression analyses were used. Normalized effective atomic number (Zeff) in the portal venous phase was the best single DECT parameter for differentiation between metastatic and nonmetastatic LNs. Findings suggested that quantitative parameters derived from DECT can be used in evaluating regional metastatic LNs in patients with colorectal cancer to improve preoperative diagnostic accuracy.