Diagnostic significance of magnetic resonance imaging in preoperative evaluation of patients with laryngeal tumors

To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of pretreatment surgical magnetic resonance images (MRI) in the assessment of patients with laryngeal tumors. The prospective study included 34 patients (mean age 62.2 ± 5.1 years) with suspected tumors of the larynx who underwent laryngeal endoscopy, followed by MRI. The MRI images were evaluated for the invasion of anterior commissure, subglottis, paraglottic and preepiglotic space, cartilage invasion, extension to extralaryngeal tissue and lymph nodes, and were compared to pathological examination of surgical specimen. In 15 patients (44%) the tumor was glottic, in 10 patients (29%) supraglottic, in 9 (27%) patients tumor was transglottic. No statistical difference was seen in the number of patients with positive MRI findings in comparison to postsurgical pathohistology for extension to subglottic subside (29 vs. 38%), growth to the anterior commissure (48 vs. 48%), preepiglottic space (33 vs. 29%), and cartilage infiltration (19 vs. 14%), respectively. However, infiltration of the paraglottic spaces was observed more frequently on MRI (71 vs. 47%), p < 0.05. According to MR findings, 4 (12%) patients were classified as T2, 26 (76%) patients as T3 and 4 (12%) patients as T4, while on pathohystological specimens after surgery, 12 patients were classified as T2 (35%), 18 as T3 (53%), and 4 as T4 (12%). Based on MRI, 76% of the patients were correctly classified, which was shown to be statistically significant (ρ = 0.56, <0.05). Fifteen patients had metastases in regional lymph nodes and only two were detected on MRI. MRI has been shown to be a method that contributes to presurgical assessment of patients with tumor of the larynx.