Preoperative local staging of colorectal cancer patients with MDCT.

Background/aims: To evaluate tumor invasion (T staging) and lymph node metastasis (N staging) of colorectal cancer preoperatively by using multi-detector computerized tomography (MDCT) and to compare with the histopathological findings.

Methodology: MDCT scan was performed for 73 patients with pathological proven colorectal carcinoma. One radiologist prospectively evaluated the depth of tumor invasion (T staging) and regional lymph node involvement (N staging). The MDCT assessment was then compared with the histopathological findings for accuracy, sensitivity and specificity.

Results: In this study, the best accuracy results had been acquired for T1 and T2 tumors as 90.4% and 73.9%, respectively. For both histopathologically staged N0 and N1 patients, the accuracy results were 61.6%. The distant metastases were not detected in this study.

Conclusions: Our study results showed that the MDCT may be useful in the preoperative assessment for the T and N staging in colorectal carcinoma.