European radiology
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We sought to prospectively evaluate the accuracy of 3.0-Tesla whole-body magnetic resonance imaging (WB-MRI) and integrated fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) positron emission tomography (PET)/computed tomography (CT) (FDG-PETCT), and their combined interpretation for the assessment of distant-site status in 150 patients with untreated nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Eighteen (12%) patients were diagnosed as having distant malignancies (15 patients had distant metastases, and three distant synchronous tumours). ⋯ Combined interpretation of WB-MRI and FDGPET-CT showed no significant benefit over either technique alone. In conclusion, 3.0-Tesla WB-MRI is a feasible, non-ionising technique that showed similar diagnostic capacity to FDG-PET-CT in assessing distant-site status in patients with untreated NPC and can be recommended as the first-line imaging technique for comprehensive evaluation of such patients.