Amide proton transfer-weighted MRI for assessing rectal adenocarcinoma T-staging and perineural invasion: a prospective study.

Objective: To investigate the value of the pre-operative amide proton transfer-weighted (APTw) MRI to assess the prognostic factors in rectal adenocarcinoma (RA).

Methods: This prospective study ran from January 2022 to September 2023 and consecutively enrolled participants with RA who underwent pre-operative MRI and radical surgery. The APTw signal intensity (SI) values of RA with various tumor (T), node (N) stages, perineural invasion (PNI), and tumor grade were compared by Mann-Whitney U-test or t-test.