Abstract:

Objective To investigate the correlation between 3.0T DCE-MRI parameters and pathological stage of rectal cancer，and to provide more valuable information for clinical improvement of preoperative diagnosis and prognosis of rectal cancer. Methods A total of 68 patients with rectal cancer were enrolled at our hospital from March 2015 to April 2016.The volume transfer constant（K^trans），rate constant（Kep），and extravascular extracellular volume fraction（Ve）were measured，and time-signal intensity curves were plotted from the 3.0T MRI and processing station. The K^trans，Kep，Ve values of different pathological stages of rectal cancer were com-pared，and potential correlations were explored. Results K^trans differed significantly among pathological T stages（P<0.05），but Kep and Ve did not（P>0.05）.K^trans，Kep and Ve did not differ significantly among different stages of rectal cancer（P>0.05）. The diagnostic threshold of the tumor Ktrans value was 0.869 min^-1，which served as an indicator to determine whether T stage was early or late. Diagnostic sensitivity was 59.0% and specificity was 99.0%. The pathological T stage of rectal cancer showed a positive correlation with tumor K^trans （r=0.403，P<0.01）. Conclusions The T stage of rectal cancer positively correlated with tumor K^trans. These DCE-MRI parameters can provide a meaningful reference value for preoperative diagnosis and clinical prognosis of rectal cancer.

Key words: Rectal neoplasms, DCE-MRI, Pathologic stage, Diagnosis