title: Functional magnetic resonance imaging in cervical cancer: current evidence and future directions.
abstract: Carcinoma cervix is one of the most common cancers amongst Indian women. Though treatment strategies continue to evolve, there are no established predictive biomarkers of prognosis or therapeutic response. Novel imaging techniques using magnetic resonance (MR) and positron emission tomography (PET) can facilitate time resolved spatial evaluation of biological characteristics (perfusion, permeability, cellularity, proliferation, oxygenation, and apoptosis) thereby serving as early surrogate biomarkers for prognosis and therapeutic response. Several of these imaging modalities such as dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI), diffusion-weighted MRI (DW-MRI), MR spectroscopy (MRS) and fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (FDG-PET) are now being evaluated for gynecological oncology, with the majority of work being performed on cervical tumors. PUBMED database was searched for this review from January 1966 till February 2011. This review examines the basic principles of functional MR imaging for cervical cancer and its current status as a diagnostic and predictive biomarker for cervical cancer.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Tata Memorial Centre, Navi Mumbai, India.
authors.forename: Sayan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kundu
authors.forename: Supriya
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chopra
authors.forename: Ashish
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Verma
authors.forename: Umesh
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Mahantshetty
authors.forename: Reena
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Engineer
authors.forename: Shyam Kishore
authors.initials: SK
authors.lastname: Shrivastava
mesh_terms: D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D002583:Uterine Cervical Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*