F-FDG PET/MR versus MR Alone in Whole-Body Primary Staging and Restaging of Patients with Rectal Cancer: What Is the Benefit of PET?

Background: To investigate and compare the diagnostic performance of F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (F-FDG) PET/MR and MR alone in whole-body primary staging and restaging of patients with rectal cancer.

Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed to evaluate diagnostic accuracies of combined reading of PET/MR and MR alone in T, N and M staging against the reference standard. Inter-observer agreement regarding TNM staging was calculated separately for PET/MR and MR alone.