Thomas Kwee1, Malou Vermoolen1,
Erik Akkerman2, Henritte Quarles van Ufford1, Frederik
Beek1, Inge Ludwig3, Marc Bierings4, Rob
Fijnheer5, Marie-Jos Kersten6, Joseph Zsiros7,
Willem Mali1, Rutger-Jan Nievelstein1
1Department of Radiology, University
Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands; 2Department of
Radiology, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands; 3Department
of Hematology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, Netherlands; 4Department
of Pediatric Hematology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht,
Netherlands; 5Department of Hematology, Meander Medical Center, Amersfoort,
Netherlands; 6Department of Hematology, Academic Medical Center,
Amsterdam, Netherlands; 7Department of Pediatric Hematology,
Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam, Netherlands
This
study aimed to assess the equivalence of whole-body MRI, including
diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), to computed tomography (CT) for the initial
staging of malignant lymphoma. To that end, 66 consecutive patients with
newly diagnosed malignant lymphoma prospectively underwent whole-body MRI
(T1-weighted and short inversion time inversion recovery [n=66], and DWI
[n=62]) at 1.5T and CT. Whole-body MRI (both with and without DWI) was equal
to staging using CT in the majority of patients, while whole-body MRI
overstaging occurs more frequently than whole-body MRI understaging (relative
to CT).