Comparison of the validity of magnetic resonance imaging and positron emission tomography/computed tomography in the preoperative evaluation of patients with uterine corpus cancer.

OBJECTIVE: To compare positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) with magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in the preoperative detection of primary lesions and lymph node (LN) and distant metastases in patients with uterine corpus cancer.

METHODS: The patient cohort consisted of 53 women with uterine corpus cancer who underwent preoperative workup, including both MRI and PET/CT scans, and underwent surgical staging, including pelvic and/or paraaortic LN dissection, between October 2004 and June 2007 at Asan Medical Center, Seoul, Korea. Pathologic data from surgical staging were compared with the preoperative MRI and PET/CT results. For area specific analysis, LNs were divided into paraaortic, right pelvic and left pelvic areas.

RESULTS: In detecting primary lesions, MRI and PET/CT showed no differences in sensitivity (91.5% vs. 89.4%), specificity (33.3% vs. 50.5%), accuracy (84.9% vs. 84.9%), positive predictive value (PPV) (91.5% vs. 93.3%) and negative predictive value (NPV) (33.3% vs. 37.5%). With MRI, the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, PPV and NPV for detecting metastatic LNs on LN area-by-area analysis were 46.2%, 87.9%, 83.9%, 28.6% and 94.0%, respectively; With PET/CT, those were 69.2%, 90.3%, 88.3%, 42.9%, and 96.6%, respectively. PET/CT showed higher sensitivity, but it did not reach statistical significance (p=0.250). There were also no differences in specificity, accuracy, PPV and NPV. In detecting distant metastasis, the sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, PPV and NPV of PET/CT were 100%, 93.8%, 92.5%, 62.5% and 100%, respectively.

CONCLUSION: In patients with uterine corpus cancer, PET/CT had moderate sensitivity, specificity and accuracy in detecting primary lesions and LN metastases, indicating that this method cannot replace surgical staging. The primary benefit of PET/CT is its sensitivity in detecting distant metastases. Because of its high NPV in predicting LN metastasis, PET/CT may also have advantages in selected patients who are poor candidates for surgical staging.