Colorectal Carcinoma: Local Tumor Staging and Assessment of Lymph Node Metastasis by High-Resolution MR Imaging in Surgical Specimens

Table 1

MR imaging criteria used to determine the depth of invasion in colorectal carcinoma.

Depth of invasion	MR imaging criteria
Mucosa (Tis)	Thickening in the mucosal layer
Submucosa (T1)	Mass in the submucosal layer
Muscularis propria (T2)	Mass extending into the muscle layer
	Abnormal signal intensity in the thickened muscle layer
Subserosa/serosa or adventitia (T3 and T4)	Mass extending through the muscle layer into the subserosa or adventitia

Note. Letters in parentheses indicate the corresponding tumor stage according to the International Union against Cancer Tumor-Node-Metastasis classification [2]. Tis: carcinoma in situ.