MRI Sequences for T-staging of Laryngeal Glottis Carcinoma: Pearls and Pitfalls

Abstract:
Laryngeal carcinoma is a disastrous malignancy that affects patients’ quality of life, with compromise of ability to talk, breathe, and swallow. Accurate tumor staging is important in order to choose the most correct therapeutic approach based on the available options from organ preservation strategies to total laryngectomy. Approximately 70% of laryngeal carcinomas are glottic. Although the mucosal extent of tumor and vocal cord mobility is best evaluated with endoscopic evaluation, cross-sectional imaging is essential for accurate T-staging, because only cross sectional imaging can assess the submucosal extent of the tumor, cartilage invasion, and extra-laryngeal spread. In this session firstly all cross sectional anatomy of the larynx will be reviewed, then the pearls and pitfalls of MRI sequences with topics crucial for imaging interpretation and finally comparison with CT scan will be discussed. Some interesting cases of our academic tertiary head and neck center will be also presented for residents and radiologists.