Medical Physics Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Medical Physics, including details on medicine, radiotherapy, biomechanics, medical imaging.

Staging of gastric cancer with 16 channel-MDCT.

Chen CY, Wu DC, Kang WY, Hsu JS

Department of Medical Imaging, Kaohsiung Medical University Hospital, No. 100 Tz You 1st road, Kaohsiung, 807, Taiwan.

Early detection and accurate preoperative staging of gastric cancer are of clinical importance, because the prognosis and the choice of an optimal therapeutic approach are directly related to the stage of a given neoplasm at the time of presentation. Multidetector row CT (MDCT) is a potentially powerful tool for noninvasive gastric evaluation. When thin collimation is used, near-isotropic imaging of the stomach is possible. Proper air distension of the stomach is used with virtual gastroscopic (VG) images, the technique is able to evaluate endoluminal lesions of the stomach and help for early gastric cancer detection. Adequate water-filled dynamic enhanced MPR images allowed the radiologist to choose the optimal imaging plane to accurately evaluate the depth of tumor invasion of the gastric wall, perigastric fat plane infiltration, to identify a thin fat plane between tumor and adjacent organs, to avoid partial-volume averaging effects and better differentiation between lymph nodes and small perirectal vessels. Thus, the combination of air- and hydro-distension of the stomach along with dynamic contrast-enhanced MDCT with near-isotropic imaging offers improved diagnosis and staging of the gastric cancers.

Published 13 September 2006 in Abdom Imaging.
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