Utility of apparent diffusion coefficient histogram analysis in differentiating benign and malignant palate lesions

•Histogram analysis of ADC maps based on DWI could differentiate benign and malignant palatal lesions.•The combination of conventional MRI and ADC values improved the diagnostic performance for palatal lesions.•The optimal diagnostic threshold of ADC value was ADC50 = 1.17 × 10−3 mm2/s.