• Jeong Kon Kim, Kyoung Ah Kim, Bum-Woo Park, Namkug Kim, and Kyoung-Sik Cho.
• Department of Radiology, Research Institute of Radiology, Medical Imaging Laboratory, Asan Medical Center, University of Ulsan College of Medicine [corrected] Seoul, South Korea. rialto@amc.seoul.kr
• J Magn Reson Imaging. 2008 Sep 1; 28 (3): 714-9.

PurposeTo investigate the feasibility of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in the differentiation of metastatic from nonmetastatic lymph nodes.Materials And MethodsIn 125 patients who underwent lymph node dissection for uterine cervical cancer, DWI was performed at b value of 0 and 1000 s/mm2. By referring to the surgical maps of the pelvic lymph nodes, the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) was compared in the metastatic and nonmetastatic lymph nodes, and receiver-operating-characteristics analysis was performed to evaluate the diagnostic performance of the ADC in differentiating metastatic from nonmetastatic lymph nodes.ResultsThe ADC were significantly lower in the metastatic lymph nodes (0.7651x10(-3) mm2/s+/-0.1137) than in the nonmetastatic lymph nodes (1.0021x10(-3) mm2/s+/-0.1859; P<0.001). The area-under-the-curve of ADC for differentiating metastatic from nonmetastatic lymph nodes, was 0.902. The sensitivity and specificity of ADC for differentiating metastatic from nonmetastatic lymph nodes, were 87% for the ADC and 80%, respectively.ConclusionDWI is feasible for differentiating metastatic from nonmetastatic lymph nodes in patients with uterine cervical cancer.Copyright (c) 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

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