Bernd B. Frericks1, Bernhard C. Meyer1, Alexander Huppertz2, Karl-Juergen Wolf1, Frank K. Wacker1,3
1Dept. of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Charit, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany; 2Charit - Siemens, Imaging Science Institute, Berlin, Germany; 3Russell H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA
Aim of this study was to evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of whole-body MR versus MDCT for staging of patients with renal cell carcinoma (RCC). Nineteen patients were examined in MDCT and in a 1.5T whole-body MR using routine imaging sequences. As compared to the reference standard, MR was comparable to MDCT for local tumor staging; STIR imaging alone was equal for N-staging. For the detection of hepatic metastases 3D-T1-GRE and T2w-TSE were superior to MDCT. For the detection of pulmonary metastases CT was slightly superior to STIR imaging. Dedicated whole-body MR enables accurate staging of patients with RCC.