Diagnostic accuracy of diffusion‐weighted MRI for differentiation of cervical cancer and benign cervical lesions at 3.0T: Comparison with routine MRI and dynamic contrast‐enhanced MRI

Purpose To compare the diagnostic accuracy of routine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) ( T 1 WI and T 2 WI), diffusion‐weighted MRI (DWI), and DCE‐MRI (dynamic contrast‐enhanced MRI) at 3.0T for differentiation of cervical cancer and benign cervical lesions. Materials and Methods A cohort of 75 cervical cancer patients, 26 cervical leiomyoma patients, 22 patients with cervical polyps consecutively underwent pelvic MRI scanning on a 3T MR unit. Two radiologists independently evaluated images at three imaging settings; routine MRI alone, DWI combined with routine MRI (DWI+routine MRI), and DCE‐MRI. The apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) were calculated from b 0, 600 s/mm 2 and b 0, 1000 s/mm 2 . Results DWI+routine MRI was significantly better than routine MRI and obtained high accuracy (0.95); the diagnostic performance was not significantly different between DWI+routine MRI and DCE‐MRI. Reader agreement was excellent for both DWI+routine MRI (κ, 0.90) and DCE‐MRI (κ, 0.92). The ADCs of cervical cancer were significantly lower than those of benign cervical lesions at both ADC maps ( P  = 0.0001). The diagnostic accuracy was not different at both ADC maps ( P  = 0.375). Conclusion For differentiation of cervical cancer and benign cervical lesions, unenhanced MRI with combined diffusion‐weighted and routine MRI (DWI+routine MRI) at 3T can provide accurate information and may be preferable to DCE. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2015. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2015;42:1094–1099.