[Object analysis of cervical lymph nodes using MRI turbo-STIR sequence in cases of head and neck tumors]

Diagnosis of cervical lymph nodes from head and neck tumors was studied using MRI turbo-STIR (short TI inversion recovery) sequence and conventional MRI sequence in 15 patients. After the MRI examination, 10 of the 15 patients underwent radical neck dissections. The detection of cervical lymph nodes with the conventional MRI was not clear. However, MRI turbo-STIR depicted clear cervical lymph node margins by selectively suppressing fat signals. Thus, the accuracy of diagnosis of cervical lymph nodes by the turbo-STIR was higher than by conventional MRI. On the other hand, differential diagnosis between metastatic and non-metastatic lymph nodes remains difficult only by turbo-STIR. These findings suggest that MRI turbo-STIR sequence is more useful in the detection of cervical lymph nodes than the conventional MRI methods.