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Challenges in dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI imaging of cervical lymph nodes to detect metastatic disease
Susan M Noworolski1, Nancy J Fischbein, Michael J Kaplan
1The Magnetic Resonance Science Center, The University of California, San Francisco, California 94143-1290, USA. sue@mrsc.ucsf.edu
Purpose:
To identify and overcome challenges in using dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to distinguish tumor from nontumor in the cervical lymph nodes of patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck.
Materials And Methods:
Signal-to-noise ratio (S/N), motion, node heterogeneity, and tissue normalizations were examined. Twenty-one patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck were scanned before a neck dissection (two-dimensional fast spoiled gradient-echo: 10 locations/13 seconds). Peak time, peak enhancement, maximum upslope, and washout slope were measured in pathologically confirmed tumor and nontumor nodes and in the submandibular gland and the sternocleidomastoid muscle.
Results:
Surface coil arrays provided high coverage and high S/N. Motion averaged 1.1 pixels and was corrected. Large tumor nodes were heterogeneous in their contrast enhancement, while the nontumor nodes were homogeneous. The contrast enhancement parameters were significantly different for all regions except for the submandibular gland compared to the nontumor nodes.
Conclusion:
Challenges of dynamic imaging of cervical lymph nodes were overcome and significant differences were found between the tumor and nontumor nodes, indicating that dynamic imaging is feasible and may aid this patient population.