The value of MR imaging in preoperative assessment in cervical cancer

Objective:To probe the value of magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) in preop-erative assessment in the early-middle stage of cervical cancer.Methods: A prospective study from May 2007 to June 2010 was carried out in 56 cases of cervical cancer patients who were admitted to our hospital while the preoperative MRI and clinicopathological information were collected completely.The tumor's location,size,signal characteristics,infiltrating range and pelvic lymph node metastasis were observed from MRI,respectively.With postopera-tive pathologic as gold standard,cases as the self-reflection,combined with the patients clinical staging,we attempted to predict the value of MRI staging in exploring cervical cancer in clinical staging and lymph node metastasis.Results: In 56 cases of cervical cancer,abnormal lesions could be observed in 53 cases(94.6%) from MRI.The lesions present equisignal in T1-weighted imaging,high signal in T2-weighted imaging,and hyperintense in diffusion weighted imaging.A total of 49 cases(87.6%) of patients based on the MRI were correctly diagnosed according to the postoperative pathological staging,significantly higher than the results based on clinical staging 55.3%(P =0.000).The sensitivity,the specificity,the accuracy of the MRI prediction of pelvic lymph node metastases were 61.5%,93.0% and 85.7%,respectively.Conclusion: MRI examination can judge cervical tumor size,muscular layer infiltration depth,and can measure the distance from the superior border of the tumor to cervical internal os,can display pelvic lymph node metastases.MRI should be used routinely in the evaluation of preoperative in early-middle cervical cancer patients to improve the accuracy of the clinical staging auxiliary.