Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - National Cancer Institute - Department of Oncology (Rdiation , Radiotherapy)

The purpose of this study was to compare diagnostic performance of the MRI with diffusion weighted images (DW-MRI) & the Positron Emission Tomography (PET-CT) in N staging of initially high risk or recurrent differentiated thyroid cancer.The study was conducted on 30 patients, each had performed both MRI with diffusion & PET-CT just before the surgical operation.The gold standard was the pathological evaluation of the surgical specimens in order to assess the sensitivity & specificity for each modality to diagnose the nodal metastasis & recurrence of the differentiated thyroid cancer. A statistical comparison of the results was made. FDG PET/ CT study was found to be a promising diagnostic modality for assessment of DTC patients, whom are at risk or with suspected recurrent regional nodal metastases.Although the reasonable specificity that is outperformed by the PET/CT over the MRI with diffusion, the sensitivity of both modalities was found to be nearly similar.By combination of both FDG PET/CT and MRI with diffusion techniques, a prominent synergistic effect was found for detection of nodal metastases in differentiated thyroid cancer and associated with superior sensitivity than using a single modality.These results will lead to open the door wide to assess the role of the PET/MRI in detection of nodal metastases in differentiated thyroid cancer

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