title: Role of combined DWIBS/3D-CE-T1w whole-body MRI in tumor staging: Comparison with PET-CT.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the diagnostic performance of whole-body magnetic resonance imaging (WB-MRI) by diffusion-weighted whole-body imaging with background body signal suppression (DWIBS) in malignant tumor detection and the potential diagnostic advantages in generating fused DWIBS/3D-contrast enhanced T1w (3D-CE-T1w) images.
  
  
  METHODS
  45 cancer patients underwent 18F-FDG PET-CT and WB-MRI for staging purpose. Fused DWIBS/3D-CE T1w images were generated off-line. 3D-CE-T1w, DWIBS images alone and fused with 3D-CE T1w were compared by two readers groups for detection of primary diseases and local/distant metastases. Diagnostic performance between the three WB-MRI data sets was assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Imaging exams and histopathological results were used as standard of references.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Areas under the ROC curves of DWIBS vs. 3D-CE-T1w vs. both sequences in fused fashion were 0.97, 0.978, and 1.00, respectively. The diagnostic performance in tumor detection of fused DWIBS/3D-CE-T1w images were statistically superior to DWIBS (p<0.001) and 3D-CE-T1w (p≤0.002); while the difference between DWIBS and 3D-CE-T1w did not show statistical significance difference. Detection rates of malignancy did not differ between WB-MRI with DWIBS and 18F-FDG PET-CT.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  WB-MRI with DWIBS is to be considered as alternative tool to conventional whole-body methods for tumor staging and during follow-up in cancer patients.
authors: Department of Diagnostic and Molecular Imaging, Interventional Radiology and Radiotherapy, University Tor Vergata, 00133 Rome, Italy. guggi@tiscali.it
authors: Guglielmo
authors: G
authors: Manenti
authors: Carmelo
authors: C
authors: Cicciò
authors: Ettore
authors: E
authors: Squillaci
authors: Lidia
authors: L
authors: Strigari
authors: Ferdinando
authors: F
authors: Calabria
authors: Roberta
authors: R
authors: Danieli
authors: Orazio
authors: O
authors: Schillaci
authors: Giovanni
authors: G
authors: Simonetti
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D064847:Multimodal Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology*; D049268:Positron-Emission Tomography; D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed; D051598:Whole Body Imaging / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D019275:Radiopharmaceuticals; D019788:Fluorodeoxyglucose F18