Effectiveness of a Tailored Anterior Saturation Band in the Improvement of the Image Quality of Pelvic Magnetic Resonance for Assessing Rectal Cancer

Abstract Purpose We sought to test the effectiveness of the application of a tailored anterior saturation band (ASB) to improve the image quality of pelvic magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for assessing rectal cancer. Methods A total of 165 patients with MRI assessment of rectal cancer between 2013 and 2015 were included. The image quality scores (4-point scale: 1, nondiagnostic through 4, excellent) of MRI without and with tailored ASBs were compared. Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, and accuracy of pelvic MRIs with and without a tailored ASB for T-staging in 65 patients with direct surgery and 67 patients with chemoradiotherapy before surgery were evaluated. Results Two independent raters exhibited moderate-to-excellent interobserver agreements (κ = 0.529-0.879) in the grading of MRI image quality. Overall, the quality scores of sagittal and axial T2-weighted images with tailored ASBs were significantly improved compared with MRIs without ASBs (3.5 ± 0.3 vs. 2.7 ± 0.8 [mean ± SD]; P P Conclusions Application of a tailored ASB in pelvic MRI is effective in substantially reducing motion artifacts, significantly upgrading image quality, and improving accuracies of rectal tumor staging.