Magnetic resonance imaging of gynecologic masses

The pelvis of 21 women with various gynecological masses were imaged with magnetic resonance (MR) imagers at 2.0 and 0.5 T. Fifteen normal individuals were used for studying the normal appearance of the female genitalia using spin echo pulse sequences with various pulse repetition (TR) and spin echo (TE) time values. Images were compared with those of the ultrasonic images, intraoperative findings, and the histopathologic examinations. The masses included simple ovarian cyst, cystadenoma, serous cystadenocarcinoma, ovarian teratoma, dysgerminoma, and uterine myoma. MR imaging was useful in demonstrating the anatomy and pathology of the cases examined in this study. It detected the internal structure of some tumors which were sonographically homogeneous. The potential of MR in staging of malignancies was demonstrated.