Magnetic Resonance Imaging of Cervical Cancer

Accurate staging of cervical carcinoma is essential to the selection of the best form of treatment. In fact, a high percentage of patients with advanced local carcinoma (FIGO stage Ib through IVa) may be cured by optimal surgery or radiation therapy. An accuracy of 50%–75% has been reported with regard to the correlation of clinical FIGO stage with histopathologic results (NAGELL et al. 1971). Although the diagnosis of cervical carcinoma needs to be established histologically, magnetic resonance (MR) imaging has an important role in the preoperative staging of disease, as shown by a number of studies. High-field MR imaging has been shown to be particularly useful in its evaluation (TOGASHI et al. 1986, 1989; RUBENS et al. 1988; HRICAK et al. 1988) because it has an inherently higher signal-to-noise ratio and can have higher resolution, especially when the phased array coil is used. However, it has not been demonstrated that high-resolution imaging with a high-field MR unit has significant advantages in tumor detection and staging. A number of studies have demonstrated MR imaging to be an excellent means of depicting either stromal and parametrial or vaginal invasion (TOGASHI et al. 1986, 1989; Rubens et al. 1988; HRICAK et al. 1988; SIRONI et al. 1992; KIM et al. 1990).