Preoperative T staging of urinary bladder cancer: efficacy of stalk detection and diagnostic performance of diffusion-weighted imaging at 3T.

Purpose: We evaluated the ability of diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) at 3 tesla for diagnosing T stage and detecting stalks in bladder cancer.

Methods: In total, 39 consecutive patients with bladder tumors underwent magnetic resonance (MR) imaging that included T2-weighted imaging (T2WI) and DWI using a 3T MR scanner. Two radiologists interpreted T2WI plus DWI and T2WI for diagnosis of T stage and for detection of stalks.