Carcinoma of the urinary bladder: MR imaging with a double surface coil.
Twenty-four patients with carcinoma of the urinary bladder were examined with MR imaging by using both a conventional body coil and a newly designed wraparound double surface coil. All patients had T1- and two patients had T2-weighted pulse sequences with both coils. Because of the long examination times, T2-weighted sequences in all other patients were obtained by using the double surface coil only. Nine patients underwent radical cystectomy, while the other patients had deep transurethral tumor resection and a clinical follow-up of at least 1.5 years. The results of imaging with the surface coil showed a twofold improvement of spatial resolution compared with the images obtained with the body coil. The RF field homogeneity was excellent, and the field of view was sufficiently large to achieve a complete study of the pelvis and the lower abdomen in one sequence. For the T1-weighted images, the higher spatial resolution of the double surface coil resulted in a significant (p less than .10) improvement in tumor staging. The accuracies of double-surface-coil and body-coil imaging were 79% and 54%, respectively. Double-surface-coil imaging appears to provide better MR images of the urinary bladder than body-coil imaging does, resulting in more accurate staging of tumors on T1-weighted pulse sequences.
Barentsz
J O
JO
Department of Diagnostic Radiology, University Hospital St. Radboud, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
Lemmens
J A
JA
Ruijs
S H
SH
Boskamp
E B
EB
Hendrikx
A J
AJ
Karthaus
H F
HF
Kaanders
J H
JH
Rosenbusch
G
G
D002295:Carcinoma, Transitional Cell / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D001749:Urinary Bladder Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology