Comparison of the diagnostic accuracy of 3D volume acquisition MRI with CT in staging colonic cancer
Mr Chris Hunter, Clinical Research Fellow
Imperial College London
Co-researchers: Mr Muti Abulafi, Professor Martin Leach, Mrs Erica Scurr, Dr Gina Brown
Project summary
Before treatment, patients with newly diagnosed cancer undergo ‘staging’ to assess how advanced the cancer is. This determines what treatment is best, and is becoming increasingly important as more treatment options become available. In colon cancer, ‘staging’ is currently performed using CT scanning, but is not completely accurate. Due to a number of advances in MRI scanning, we think ‘staging’ with MRI may be more accurate than CT, as it is in rectal cancer.
Patients with colon cancer who do not need pre-operative chemotherapy will be included in the trial. They will undergo their normal pre-operative CT and will also have two pre-operative MRI scans.
If all goes well, their cancer will be removed by surgery. After the operation, the cancer will be ‘staged’ microscopically (by histological examination, which is the most accurate method of ‘staging’ cancer, but can be performed only post-operatively).
The accuracy of the previous CT and MRI scans in assessing how far the cancer has spread will be compared, using histology as the gold standard against which accuracy is judged.
This page was last updated on 12-11-2010