Comparison of 18F-FDG PET/MRI and MRI alone for pretherapeutic tumor staging of patients with primary cancer of the uterine cervix.

This study demonstrates a successful attempt to utilize and evaluate the diagnostic potential of integrated PET/MRI for staging patients with primary cervical cancer. According to the results, 18F-FDG PET data do not seem to provide useful additional information to MRI for the determination of the local extent of the primary tumors. However, the present results show a better performance of simultaneously acquired 18F-FDG PET and MR datasets for the detection of nodal and distant metastases if compared to MRI alone. Therefore, integrated PET/MR imaging may provide valuable information for treatment planning and to predict prognosis.