Staging of esophageal cancer using PET/MRI: a systematic review with head-to-head comparison.

Purpose: To evaluate the staging performance of positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance imaging (PET/MRI) for confirmed esophageal cancer based on the TNM classification system as well as compare it to other alternative modalities (e.g., endoscopic ultrasonography (EUS), computed tomography (CT), MRI, and PET/CT) in a full head-to-head manner.

Methods: Protocol was pre-registered a priori at ( http://osf.io/6qj5m/ ). We searched PubMed, Web of Science, Embase, and Cochrane Library for studies until September 10, 2024. The risk of bias was assessed using Modified Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies (QUADAS-2) and Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies-Comparative (QUADAS-C). The classification performance of PET/MRI in T, N, and M staging of esophageal cancer and resectability status were evaluated and compared to other relative modalities. Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations (GRADE) was used for certainty evaluation.

Results: Nine studies were included with 245 esophageal cancer patients. For T, N, and M staging, PET/MRI showed 9.1%, 2.0%, and 10.7% upstaging than the histopathological evaluation while these numbers were 19.4%, 12.4%, and 5.3% for downstaging. For direct comparison with PET/CT, PET/MRI showed 0.7% and 5.6% less downstaging and upstaging for N staging and 2.5% and 4.0% for M staging. As for predicting resectability status, pre-ADCmean and post-ADCmean were promising, unlike other parameters (i.e., ΔADCmean, pre-SUVmax, post-SUVmax, and ΔSUVmax).

Conclusion: With protocol adjustments, PET/MRI might be utilized in the future for preoperative staging of esophageal cancer.

Clinical Trial Number: N/A.