Prospective multimodal imaging assessment of locally advanced cervical cancer patients administered by chemoradiation followed by radical surgery—the “PRICE“ study 2: role of conventional and DW-MRI

Objectives To assess the diagnostic performance of conventional and DW-MRI parameters in the detection of residual tumor in locally advanced cervical cancer (LACC) patients treated with neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (nCRT) and radical surgery Methods Between October 2010 and June 2014, 88 patients with histologically documented cervical cancer (FIGO stage IB2–IVA) were prospectively included in the study. Maximum tumor diameters ( max TD), tumor volume (TV), DWI signal intensity (SI), and ADC mean were evaluated at MRI after nCRT. Histology was the reference standard. Treatment response was classified as complete (CR) or partial (PR). Comparisons were made with Mann-Whitney, χ 2 , and Fisher’s exact tests. ROC curves were generated for variables to evaluate diagnostic ability to predict PR and to determine the best cutoff value to predict PR. For each diagnostic test, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy were calculated. Results TV and max TD were significantly smaller in the CR than in the PR group ( p