Potential role of whole-body diffusion magnetic resonance imaging in tumor staging for pregnant patients with cancer

Malignancy during pregnancy poses a serious threat to the growing fetus. In this special situation, the diagnostic procedures and treatment to cancer will be more damaging to the developing fetus than the cancer itself. However, to safeguard the health of the mother from cancer, appropriate diagnostic and therapeutic tools are to be used that would minimize risk to fetal health. Diffusion-weighted whole-body imaging with background body signal suppression has the potential to answer most of these diagnostic dilemmas in the case of malignancy in pregnancy. This is one of the first such reports highlighting the role of a noninvasive, nonionizing whole-body imaging technique which does not require external contrast injection and can also be used for monitoring treatment response.