Role of diffusion weighted MRI in the initial diagnosis and follow-up of pharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma

Background and purpose: Pharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma is a unique disease, and early initial diagnosis and follow-up after treatment are areas in which DWI may be very helpful. The purpose of our study was to evaluate the role of diffusion weighted MRI in initial diagnosis and post treatment follow-up of pharyngeal carcinoma.Material and methods: 25 patients with 58 lesions were included in this study, and patients were classified into two groups according to their clinical situation: pretreatment group coming for initial diagnosis or pretreatment staging and post treatment group coming for follow-up. All patients were submitted to MRI including DWI with measurement of ADC value and correlation with histopathological data.Results: In pretreatment group which includes 10 patients with 30 lesions DWI shows sensitivity of 89% compared to 71% and 82% for conventional and contrast enhanced (CE) MRI respectively. In post treatment group DWI shows PPV of 95% as compared to 81% and 87% for conventional and CE MRI respectively.Conclusion: Diffusion weighted imaging shows high sensitivity in terms of detection, staging and follow-up of pharyngeal carcinoma. (C) 2015 The Egyptian Society of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license