Role of New Functional MRI Techniques in the Diagnosis, Staging, and Followup of Gynecological Cancer: Comparison with PET-CT
Figure 3
Stage IIb squamous cell carcinoma of the uterine cervix in a 38-year-old woman. (a) Sagittal and (b) axial T2-WI images of the uterus show a barrel-shaped cervical tumor (asterisks). Due to high anatomic resolution of MRI, axial T2-WI demonstrates disruption of the low signal cervical stromal ring and tumoral invasion of the right parametrium (black arrow). (c) DWI: shows a well-defined hyperintense mass in the cervical area. (d) On the ADC map the tumor is hypointense and shows ADC values as low as 0.79 × 10−3 mm2/s. (e) Axial postcontrast CT image hardly depicts cervical cancer, and is not a reliable tool for distinguishing tumor infiltration of adjacent parametrial structures. (f) PET-CT: the tumor is clearly visible because of its high metabolic activity, but it is not possible to distinguish parametrial infiltration.
