Prospective comparison of MR with diffusion-weighted imaging, endoscopic ultrasound, MDCT and positron emission tomography-CT in the pre-operative staging of oesophageal cancer: results from a pilot study

Objective:To compare the diagnostic performance of MR and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), multidetector CT, endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS) and 18F-FDG (fluorine-18 fludeoxyglucose) positron emission tomography CT (PET-CT) in the pre-operative locoregional staging of oesophageal cancer.Methods:18 patients with oesophageal or Siewert I tumour (9 directly treated with surgery and 9 addressed to chemo-/radiotherapy before) underwent 1.5-T MR and DWI, 64-channel multidetector CT, EUS and PET-CT before (n = 18) and also after neoadjuvant treatment (n = 9). All images were analysed and staged blindly by dedicated operators (seventh TNM edition). Two radiologists calculated independently the apparent diffusion coefficient from the first scan. Results were compared with histopathological findings. After the population had been divided according to local invasion (T1–T2 vs T3–T4) and nodal involvement (N0 vs N+), sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, positive- and negative-predictive values were calculated and co...