Current Staging Procedures in Urinary Bladder Cancer

Currently computed tomography (CT) represents the most widely used standard imaging modality in muscle-invasive urinary bladder cancer. Visualization of local tumor or depth of invasion as well as lymph node staging, however, is often impaired. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with diffusion-weighted sequences, determination of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values or utilization of superparamagnetic iron nanoparticles potentially exhibits advantages in the assessment of local tumor or lymph node involvement and therefore might play a role in routine staging of urinary bladder cancer in the future. Likewise, positron emission tomography (PET) with the currently utilized tracers (18)F-FDG, (11)C-choline and (11)C-acetate is investigated in bladder cancer patients-mostly in combination with diagnostic CT. Although promising results could be obtained for these PET/CT examinations in smaller series, their true value cannot be determined at present.