Preoperative staging of endometrial carcinoma: diagnostic effect of T2-weighted fast spin-echo MR imaging.

Abstract

T2-weighted imaging is useful for identifying the stage of endometrial carcinoma.

Endometrial carcinoma: Assessment of myometrial invasion with plain and gadolinium-enhanced MR imaging

“…Thus, in our series, contrast-enhanced MRI significantly improved sensitivity and negative predictive value without losing specificity. The discordance between Takahashi et al's (7) results and our results may be the effect of the different field strength (1.5 T in Takahashi vs. 0.5 T in our study), with the subsequent differences in signal-to-noise ratio, and the resultant T2-weighted images.…”

“…The reported accuracy of non-contrast-enhanced MR imaging for assessing the depth of myometrial invasion ranges between 74% and 97% (1,4,5,6,7,16,19). Hricak et al (1), in a prospective study of 88 patients, obtained an overall accuracy with MRI of 85%.…”

Endometrial carcinoma: efficacy of thin-section oblique axial MR images for evaluating cervical invasion

“…MR imaging was performed with a 1.5-T superconductive magnet (Magnetom H-15, Siemens, Erlangen, Germany) with a body coil to obtain either T2-weighted 2000/90 spin-echo (SE) images with a 30-to 35-cm field of view and one excitation or T2-weighted 3000 -4000/103 turbo-SE images with a 30-to 35-cm field of view and two excitations. MR images were obtained in the transverse planes of the body, parasagittal planes taken in a direction parallel to the longitudinal axis of the uterus [16], and short axial planes of the uterus including the entire tumor (Fig. 1).…”

“…Previously published criteria were followed for the evaluation of cervical invasion by endometrial carcinoma on T2-weighted images and contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images [4,14,16]. Cervical invasion was considered to be present when widening of the internal os and cervical canal and/or abnormal intensity due to the tumor were seen in the cervical canal and stroma and when the cervical epithelium disappeared partly or totally.…”

“…T2-weighted images have been reported to be useful for the diagnosis of endometrial carcinoma [4 -12], and contrast-enhanced T1-weighted images or dynamic MR images have been reported to be more useful than T2-weighted images [13][14][15]. Takahashi et al [16] reported on the usefulness of T2-weighted fast spin-echo MR imaging with a multiple surface coil and a 512 ϭ 256 matrix in the preoperative assessment of endometrial carcinoma. As for the evaluation of cervical invasion by endometrial carcinoma, Murakami et al [17] reported that parasagittal MR images taken in a direction parallel to the longitudinal axis of the uterus are more useful than sagittal MR images because the relations between endometrial carcinoma and the uterine cavity and cervical canal are more clearly demonstrated on parasagittal images than on sagittal images.…”