MRI diagnosis of large bowel cancer

We studied an usefulness of MRI for preoperative staging of large bowel cancer. Eighteen patients underwent MRI examination under a suitable preparation. Selected pulse sequences are a) ordinal SE(Spin Echo : TR/TE = 1000/40), b) T1 enhanced imaging(short SE : 300/24, Inversion Recovery : TE/TI = 2000/500), c) T2 enhanced imaging(long SE : 2000/80). In 17 of 18 cases the main tumor was detected in ordinal SE imaging. In 14 of 17 cases (82 %), extrabowel invasions were accurately diagnosed. Furthermore, 93 % of overall accuracies were obtained with T1 and T2 enhanced imagings. MRI also accurately staged lymph node metastasis of large bowel cancer in 13 of 14 cases, that were definitely diagnosed by histopathological examination. Sectional imaging along the bowel and enhancement of the elongated T1, T2 of cancer can be easily obtained by MRI. T1, T2 enhancement can make it easy to detect the boundary of cancer because of their fine contrast. MRI was also useful for the preoperative staging of large bowel cancer. (author)