• Alessandro Stecco, Francesco Buemi, Alessia Cassarà, Roberta Matheoud, Gian Mauro Sacchetti, Alberto Arnulfo, Marco Brambilla, and Alessandro Carriero.
• Radiology Department, University of Eastern Piedmont, "Maggiore della Carità" Hospital, Corso Mazzini 18, 28100, Novara, Italy. a.stecco@libero.it.
• Radiol Med. 2016 Jul 1; 121 (7): 537-45.

ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to compare the accuracy of retrospective image fusion of PET/MRI-DWI with that of PET/CT and MRI-DWI alone in detecting metastatic lymph nodes in patients with cervical and endometrial carcinoma.Materials And MethodsTwenty-seven patients with endometrial (n = 14) and cervical (n = 13) cancer who had undergone preoperative MRI-DWI and PET/CT for staging were retrospectively evaluated. The accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV), and negative predictive value (NPV) of PET/CT, MRI-DWI, and PET/MRI-DWI image fusion were calculated on a per-patient basis and on a per-node basis. Histopathological and follow-up imaging results were used as the gold standard.ResultsOn a per-patient basis PET/MRI-DWI had the same sensitivity (87.5 %), specificity (84.2 %), diagnostic accuracy (85.1 %), PPV (70 %), and NPV (94.1 %) as PET-CT, but on a per-node basis PET/MRI-DWI showed better sensitivity (89 vs 70.2 %), specificity (91.6 vs 90.5 %), diagnostic accuracy (91.2 vs 87 %), PPV (68.7 vs 60.4 %), and NPV (97.6 vs 93.6 %) than PET-CT. Comparison of the areas under the ROC curves for the detection of metastatic lymph nodes demonstrated a non-significant difference (p = 0.055) between PET/CT and fused PET/MRI-DWI.ConclusionPET/MRI-DWI may be a valuable technique for N-staging patients with endometrial and cervical cancer, but more studies are needed to investigate its potential clinical utility.

27 keywords...

hide…