Role of apparent diffusion coefficient in assessment of loco-regional nodal spread in cancer rectum: correlative study with histopathological findings

Background Rectal cancer is associated with high morbidity and mortality rates. Preoperative assessment and detection of nodal metastasis are crucial for selecting a proper treatment plan. Diffusion-weighted imaging is considered to be a crucial functional imaging technique that can aid in determining the condition of lymph nodes. This study aimed to assess the diagnostic utility of MRI functional images by use of apparent diffusion coefficient in regional nodal assessment in rectal cancer. Results This study included 54 patients including 29 males (53.7%) and 25 females (46.3%) presented with pathologically proven rectal cancer. Regarding rectal adenocarcinoma, functional MRI imaging using ADC values found to have a better sensitivity (86.24%) in detection of regional nodal metastasis than conventional morphological MRI criteria with 1.05 × 10 −3 mm 2 /s was employed as cutoff value to distinguish metastatic from non-metastatic lymph nodes with statistically significant P value (