Clinicopathologic Comparison of High-Dose-Rate Endorectal Brachytherapy versus Conventional Chemoradiotherapy in the Neoadjuvant Setting for Resectable Stages II and III Low Rectal Cancer
Figure 2
Representative pre- and posttreatment MRI slices from patients who underwent EBT and were found to have a complete pathologic response (pCR: defined as no residual tumor on histopathologic examination) at surgery. Although all 3 patients achieved a complete pathologic response, they demonstrated differing degrees of radiologic response on MRI according to RECIST, suggesting that degree of radiologic response does not necessarily predict for degree of pathologic tumor response. The longest tumor dimensions in 3 planes used for RECIST assessment are indicated by white asterisks. Scans represented in the top, middle, and bottom rows were obtained 39, 34, and 32 days following the completion of radiotherapy, respectively. Top row: coronal (a), (b) and axial (c), (d) MRI slices from a patient with a pCR who also demonstrated a radiologic complete response (CR); no residual tumor is visualized on post-EBT MRI (b), (d). Middle row: coronal (e), (f) and axial (g), (h) MRI slices from a patient with a pCR who demonstrated a radiologic partial response (PR) on post-EBT MRI (f), (h). Bottom row: coronal (i), (j) and axial (k), (l) MRI slices from a patient with pCR who demonstrated stable disease (SD) on post-EBT MRI (j), (l).
