A Comparative Analysis of CT and MRI in Detecting Skull Base Invasion of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

[Purpose] To investigate the detective ability of CT and MRI in skull base invasion of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). [Methods] One hundred and twenty eight newly diagnosed patients with pathologically confirmed NPC were examined by both CT and MRI. [Results] The overall positive rate of skull base invasion detected by CT and MRI was 19.53%(25/128) and 49.22%(63/128), with significant difference (P0.05). There were 6 cases(24.00%)with single site involved and 19 cases(76.00%) with multi-sites involved in CT scans. There were 18 cases (28.57%)with single site involved and 45 cases(71.43%) with multi-sites involved in MRI. [Conclusion] The detective ability of MRI for skull base invasion in NPC is superior to that of CT. MRI imaging is more sensitive than CT especially in detecting NPC marrow invasion. It will benefit the staging of NPC and the clinical treatment strategy.