One hundred two consecutive patients undergoing surgical treatment for rectal cancer were examined by means of endorectal ultrasound (US) for staging before surgery. Eighty-one of these patients also underwent staging with computed tomography (CT). The diagnostic sensitivity of endorectal US in detection of tumor extension into fat was 67%; specificity, 77%; positive predictive value, 73%; and negative predictive value, 72%. The sensitivity of CT for this finding was 53%; specificity, 53%; positive predictive value, 56%; and negative predictive value, 50%. The sensitivity of endorectal US in detection of lymph node infiltration was 50%; specificity, 92%; positive predictive value, 68%; and negative predictive value, 84%. For this finding the sensitivity and negative predictive value, 76%. These findings suggest that endorectal US may be as accurate as CT, or more so, in the preoperative staging of rectal cancer.

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To determine whether signal intensity (SI) of the pancreas that was less than that of liver on T1-weighted fat-suppressed (T1FS) magnetic resonance (MR) images could be used to help predict the presence of pancreatic disease, three blinded independent observers graded pancreatic SI relative to liver and/or renal cortex in 89 patients on T1FS images. Results were correlated with patient age and diagnosis. Among the 47 patients with a clinically normal pancreas, pancreatic SI was higher than that of liver in 42 and equal to that of liver in the rest, none of whom had evidence of fatty pancreas. These five patients had a mean age of 71 years, compared with 55 years for patients whose pancreas was more intense than liver (P = .02). Of the 42 patients with a clinically abnormal pancreas, only eight had pancreatic SI higher than that of liver. The positive predictive value for normal pancreas of an SI higher than that of liver was 84% and the positive predictive value for abnormal pancreas of an SI less than or equal to that of liver was 88%, with an overall accuracy of 86%. If normal pancreatic SI is defined as higher than that of liver for patients younger than 60 years and as equal to or higher than that of liver for patients older than 60 years, the positive predictive value of normal SI becomes 76%, the positive predictive value of decreased SI becomes 100%, and the overall accuracy becomes 83%.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

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