Accuracy of 3-T MRI for Preoperative T Staging of Esophageal Cancer After Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy, With Histopathologic Correlation

OBJECTIVE. The purpose of this study was to explore the value of 3-T MRI for evaluating the preoperative T staging of esophageal cancer (EC) treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC), with histopathologic confirmation. SUBJECTS AND METHODS. This prospective study enrolled patients for whom endoscopic biopsy showed EC and pretreatment CT showed stage cT1N+M0 or cT2–T4aN0–N3M0. All patients received two cycles of NAC (paclitaxel and nedaplatin protocol) followed by 3-T MRI and surgical resection. Readers assigned a T category on MRI, and postoperative pathologic confirmation was considered the reference standard. Interreader agreement, the diagnostic accuracy of T staging on T2-weighted turbo spin-echo (TSE) BLADE (Siemens Healthcare), contrast-enhanced StarVIBE (Siemens Healthcare), high-resolution delayed phase StarVIBE, and the combination of the three sequences were analyzed and compared with postoperative pathologic T staging. RESULTS. The study included 79 patients. Mean time between NAC and MRI was...