New MR techniques in gynecologic cancer

Functional MR techniques report on a variety of biologic features of tumors: dynamic contrast-enhanced, diffusion-weighted, and intrinsic susceptibility-weighted MRI and MR spectroscopy reflect, at a simplistic level, vascularity, cellularity, hypoxic status, and metabolism, respectively. This article reviews the evidence for each of the functional MR readouts to determine these clinical end points and thus influence the management of ovarian, endometrial, and cervical cancer. These techniques may be implemented in gynecologic malignancies to detect, characterize, and stage tumors as well as potentially to predict the outcome and measure response to treatment.