MR perfusion for pelvic female imaging

Perfusion MRI of the female pelvis is based on a T1-weighted imaging acquired repeatedly at high temporal resolution. Post-processing can be carried out either from a visual analysis, by description of the curves or by compartmental modeling. Many studies have shown this method to be useful in detecting cervical cancers (initial tumor or identification of recurrence), and in staging endometrial cancers (assessment of cervical invasion). More recent studies have described perfusion MRI as a tool for characterizing adnexal tumors based on the properties of the microvascular wall. When it is combined with morphological MRI findings and diffusion sequences, it incorporates a decision-making algorithm which has a diagnostic performance of 95.4% in characterizing complex adnexal masses (Thomassin-Naggara et al., 2011).