title: [Whole-body MRI and PET/CT in tumor diagnosis].
abstract: Tumor staging according to the TNM-system influences prognosis and therapeutical options of patients with a malignant disease. It is the challenge of diagnostic imaging to depict the exact localization of the primary tumor and to detect or rule out lymph node involvement or distant metastases. In doing so, the complete body anatomy should be covered with a modality that offers high sensitivity and specificity. As these requirements could not or only partially be achieved by previous ordinary procedures, the use of multiple different modalities became necessary. Last but not least, in consideration of the costs it would be preferable to replace this cascade of different modalities by a "whole body examination", preconditioned that the same accuracy is achieved.With PET/CT and whole-body MRI, two newly available promising methods for a systemic tumor staging have been developed. First experiences indicate PET/CT as a method of first choice. With the introduction of new whole-body MRI scanners using parallel imaging technique (iPAT) and free table movement, MRI plays a more and more important role in whole body tumor staging.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Klinische Radiologie, Klinikum Grosshadern der Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. Gerwin.Schmidt@med.uni-muenchen.de
authors.forename: G P
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Schmidt
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Schmid
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Hahn
authors.forename: M F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Reiser
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D016477:Artifacts; D004867:Equipment Design; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation*; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis / Q000175:diagnosis; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008297:Male; D009367:Neoplasm Staging / Q000295:instrumentation; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography / Q000295:instrumentation*; D012016:Reference Values; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000295:instrumentation*