MRI prognostic factors of tongue cancer: potential predictors of cervical lymph nodes metastases.

Background This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of three MR imaging parameters, which are tumour thickness, para-lingual distance and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) value for prediction of cervical lymph nodes metastasis in cancer tongue patients. Patients and methods Fifty patients with proved cancer tongue by histopathological examination underwent MRI examination. T1 and T2- weighted MRI, diffusion-weighted images and post-contrast T1 fat suppression sequences were used.