Reduced field-of-view diffusion-weighted MRI in patients with cervical cancer

Objective: Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) with reduced field-of-view (FOV) has been shown to provide high spatial resolution with reduced distorsion in the spinal cord, breast, pancreas, and prostate gland. Therefore, we performed this study to evaluate the qualitative image quality and quantitative ADC value of reduced FOV DWI in patients with cervical cancer in comparison with conventional DWI. Methods: This study retrospectively included 22 patients (mean age, 53.9 years) with biopsy-proven cervical cancer who underwent pelvic MR imaging including conventional DWI and reduced FOV DWI before therapy. Two observers independently rated image quality for reduced FOV DWI and conventional DWI regarding anatomic detail, lesion conspicuity, presence of artifacts, and overall image quality using the following 4-point scale. Quantitative analysis was performed by measuring the ADC value of the tumor. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to compare qualitative scores and mean ADC value between two DWI sequences. Results: Reduced FOV DWI achieved significantly better anatomic detail, lesion conspicuity, presence of artifacts, and overall image quality compared to conventional DWI (p > 0.05). There was no significant difference in mean tumor ADC value between the two DWI sequences (0.990 × 10^-3 mm² s-1± 0.364 at reduced FOV DWI vs 1.253 × 10^-3 mm² s-1± 0.387 at conventional DWI) (p = 0.067). Conclusion: Reduced FOV DWI shows better image quality in terms of anatomic detail and lesion conspicuity with fewer artifacts compared to conventional DWI. Advance in knowledge: Reduced FOV DWI may enhance diagnostic performance for evaluation of cervical cancer.