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Research progress of conventional MRI characteristics in prognostic prediction of nasopharyngeal carcinoma
YANG Fan  LIN Meng  ZHANG Hongmei 

Cite this article as: YANG F, LIN M, ZHANG H M. Research progress of conventional MRI characteristics in prognostic prediction of nasopharyngeal carcinoma[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2024, 15(8): 218-223. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2024.08.035.


[Abstract] Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a malignant tumor that originates from the columnar epithelium of the nasopharyngeal mucosa. Currently, the treatment regime for patients with NPC is mainly based on the degree of invasion of the primary tumor and the size and location of cervical lymph nodes on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), but disease progression still occurs in approximately 10%-30% of patients after treatment. Currently, multi-functional MRI technology has demonstrated better prognosis predictive performance than conventional MRI technology, but the value of conventional MRI in clinical applications cannot be ignored due to its higher resolution, better stability and wider availability. In recent years, several studies have investigated the value of the skull base structures invasion (e.g., skull bone invasion, soft tissue infiltration, etc.) of NPC and other morphological features (e.g., extra-nodal extension, lymph node necrosis, etc.) of metastatic lymph nodes in predicting the prognosis of NPC, and the addition of certain conventional MRI features to the current eighth edition staging can significantly improve the predictive performance. Therefore, the present study summarizes the value of multi-dimensional primary tumor and lymph node features in conventional MRI [including T2WI, contrast-enhanced T1WI (CE-T1WI), diffusion weighted imaging (DWI)] in the prognosis prediction of NPC to provide a reliable basis for clinical diagnosis and treatment.
[Keywords] magnetic resonance imaging；nasopharyngeal carcinoma；prognostic assessment；induction chemotherapy；lymph node metastasis

YANG Fan   LIN Meng   ZHANG Hongmei*  

Department of Diagnostic Radiology, National Cancer Center, National Clinical Research Center for Cancer, Cancer Hospital, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Beijing 100021, China

Corresponding author: ZHANG H M, E-mail: 13581968865@163.com

Conflicts of interest   None.

Received  2024-05-18
Accepted  2024-07-16
DOI: 10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2024.08.035
Cite this article as: YANG F, LIN M, ZHANG H M. Research progress of conventional MRI characteristics in prognostic prediction of nasopharyngeal carcinoma[J]. Chin J Magn Reson Imaging, 2024, 15(8): 218-223. DOI:10.12015/issn.1674-8034.2024.08.035.

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