Role of MR in diagnosis of uterine leiomyoma

Uterine myoma is the most common benign uterine neoplasm, and associated with numerous gynecologic and obsteric complication. Preoperative acurrate analysis of the number, location and type of the myoma is important, especially in reproductive women. We analyze the MR findings of uterine myoma for evaluation of the role of MR in diagnosis of uterine myoma. We analyze MR findings of 76 myomas in 40 patients, and 34 myomas in 17 patients of them were confirmed by surgery. With 2.0T Spectro-20000(Gold-star, Korea), T1WI axial images and T2WI axial and sagittal images were obtained. Locations were classified into fundus, anterior body, posterior body, right body, left body, and cervix. Types were classified into submucosal, intramural, and subserosal. Associated findings were analyzed also. The most common location and type were posterior body and intramural type, respectively. Ten myomas were confirmed on surgery only, and the causes were as follows: first, all 10 myomas were less than 2 cm in size; second, 1 subserosal myoma was abutted to a large ovarian mass; third, small myomas were abutted to each other, or small one was adjacent to larger one and considered as one large myoma. Degenerative change was noted in 50% of histologically confirmed cases. High signal halo on T2WI was noted in 14%. MR is excellent in detection and localization of uterine leiomyoma larger than 2cm, and may be a preoperative diagnostic method of choice in patient who need myomectomy for preservation of childbearing function