The presurgical T staging of non-small cell lung cancer: efficacy comparison of 64-MDCT and 3.0 T MRI

BACKGROUND Lung cancer has been the main concern of the cancer-related deaths worldwide. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is reported the most common subtype of lung cancer. Initial staging of NSCLC is highly associated with the choice of treatment and prognosis of the patients. This study aims to prospectively compare the diagnostic efficacies of 64-multidetector-row computed tomography (MDCT) and 3.0 T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in T staging of NSCLC.  METHODS Institutional review board approval and informed consent were obtained. Forty-five patients diagnosed with NSCLC who underwent preoperative MRI and MDCT scans were enrolled in the study. The efficacies of determination of T staging on MRI and MDCT were compared by using the McNemar test. RESULTS Of 45 patients diagnosed with NSCLC, the primary tumors were correctly staged in 38 (84.4 %) patients on MDCT, and in 37 (82.2 %) patients on MRI. There was no statistically significant difference between the two modalities in the overall T staging of NSCLC with the reference of pathological findings (p = 0.564). However, MDCT was indicated more accurate in determination of NSCLC staged T1 and T2 (100 % vs 75 %, 96.4 % vs 82.1 %), whereas MRI was presented slightly superior in identification of NSCLC staged T3 and T4 (80 % vs 50 %, 100 % vs 33.3 %). CONCLUSION Both MDCT and MRI provided acceptable overall accuracies in determination of T staging in NSCLC. Furthermore, MRI was presented slight superiority for the advanced-stage tumors (i.e., NSCLC staged T3 and T4), whereas MDCT was indicated mild acceptance for the limited-stage tumors (i.e., NSCLC staged T1 and T2).