[Study of preoperative MRI staging of tongue carcinoma in relation to pathological findings].
OBJECTIVE
To study the features of tongue carcinoma in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and the value of MRI in the preoperative clinical staging of malignancy.


METHODS
Thirty-nine patients with tongue carcinoma underwent MRI examination, the findings of which were analyzed for staging of the tumors in comparison with the pathological findings.


RESULTS
MRI showed good performance in displaying tumor invasion, invasion depth and extension but failed in distinguishing and qualitative identification of the lymph nodes less than 1 cm. The sensitivity of MRI for clinical staging of T1, T2, T3, and T4 primary tumors, in accordance with tumor node metastasis (TNM) staging system, was 100%, 83.3%, 90.9% and 82.6% with specificity of 73.5%, 83.5%, 63.6% and 82.6%, respectively. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value for diagnosis of the lymph nodes were 60.8%, 75.0%, 77.8% and 76.2%, respectively. The sensitivity of MRI for the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging was 100%, 85.7%, 92.3% and 88.9%, respectively for stage I, II, III and IV tumors, with specificity of 66.7%, 76.3%, 76.9% and 77.8%, respectively. Lymph nodes metastasis occurred in 0%, 37.5%, 81.6% and 88.2% of the cases with tumor invasion depth of less than 3, 3-6, 6-9 and more than 9 mm respectively, without any significant differences between the latter 2 groups of cases (P>0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
MRI offers important evidence for TNM and AJCC staging of tongue carcinoma, and the MRI features in conjunction with clinical manifestations and tumor invasion depth are instrumental in improving the accuracy of preoperative staging of the tumors.
Zeng
Hui
H
Department of Medical Imaging, People's Hospital of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou 510080, China. irsc@163.com
Liang
Chang-hong
CH
Zhou
Zheng-gen
ZG
Zheng
Jun-hui
JH
Zeng
Qiong-xin
QX
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009361:Neoplasm Invasiveness; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D014062:Tongue Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*