Usefulness of DWI in preoperative assessment of deep myometrial invasion in patients with endometrial carcinoma: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background: The objective of this study was to perform a systematic review and a meta-analysis in order to estimate the diagnostic accuracy of diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) in the preoperative assessment of deep myometrial invasion in patients with endometrial carcinoma. Methods: Studies evaluating DWI for the detection of deep myometrial invasion in patients with endometrial carcinoma were systematically searched for in the MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library from January 1995 to January 2014. Methodologic quality was assessed by using the Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies tool. Bivariate random-effects meta-analytic methods were used to obtain pooled estimates of sensitivity, specificity, diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. The study also evaluated the clinical utility of DWI in preoperative assessment of deep myometrial invasion. Results: Seven studies enrolling a total of 320 individuals met the study inclusion criteria. The summary area under the ROC curve was 0.91. There was no evidence of publication bias (P = 0.90, bias coefficient analysis). Sensitivity and specificity of DWI for detection of deep myometrial invasion across all studies were 0.90 and 0.89, respectively. Positive and negative likelihood ratios with DWI were 8 and 0.11 respectively. In patients with high pre-test probabilities, DWI enabled confirmation of deep myometrial invasion; in patients with low pre-test probabilities, DWI enabled exclusion of deep myometrial invasion. The worst case scenario (pre-test probability, 50%) post-test probabilities were 89% and 10% for positive and negative DWI results, respectively. Conclusion: DWI has high sensitivity and specificity for detecting deep myometrial invasion and more importantly can reliably rule out deep myometrial invasion. Therefore, it would be worthwhile to add a DWI sequence to the standard MRI protocols in preoperative evaluation of endometrial cancer in order to detect deep myometrial invasion, which along with other poor prognostic factors like age, tumor grade, and LVSI would be useful in stratifying high risk groups thereby helping in the tailoring of surgical approach in patient with low risk of endometrial carcinoma.