DWI breaks new ground in pelvic MR imaging, staging

Several studies released at the 2007 RSNA meeting suggest that diffusion-weighted MR imaging could one day become a routine exam for noninvasive characterization and staging of uterine tumors, replacing unnecessary catheter or surgical biopsies.

Dr. Nagaraj S. Holalkere and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital retrospectively evaluated 65 women with 80 gynecologic lesions who underwent 1.5T DWI with a phased-array coil. The investigators found DWI accurate for lesion characterization. Dr. Sandro Sironi and colleagues at the University of Milan, Italy, enrolled 37 consecutive patients with early-stage endometrial carcinoma and compared DWI data against conventional MRI and biopsy. Sironi found the combination of conventional MR and DWI enhanced staging. A Korean team led by Dr. Kyoung Ah Kim at the Pochon CHA University in Sungnam evaluated DWI data from 108 patients with uterine cervical cancer. They found DWI useful for differentiating metastatic from nonmetastatic lymph nodes.