| Abstract [eng] |
Cervical cancer is one of the most frequent malignancies in women, often associated with the Human Papilloma Virus. Conization means the removal of a cone-shaped segment of the cervix, which can be used as a diagnostic tool and as a therapeutic procedure in the early stages of cervical cancer. Nonetheless, residual lesions can persist despite clear margins. This leads to the conclusion that accurate imaging is crucial for detecting any remaining disease. Magnetic Resonance Imaging offers excellent soft tissue contrast and is considered as gold standard for local staging, treatment planning and follow-up. Despite its advantages, post-conization or radiation induced inflammation, and fibrosis can mimic tumoral tissue on MRI images, leading to false positive findings. Due to this, careful interpretation and imaging analysis in multiple planes and a delay between conization and MRI, is necessary to reduce diagnostic mistakes. If standard sequences fail to identify residual disease, dynamic contrast-enhanced Magnetic Resonance Imaging helps in the quantification of vascular permeability parameters. These parameters offer a more sensitive approach to residual cervical disease by identifying so called “MRI-invisible” lesions. Recent research highlights the use of radiomics, where advanced computational methods extract quantitative imaging features with the goal of identifying subtle residual lesions. |
