Objectives: To assess the prognostic impact of the pretreatment mean apparent diffusion coefficient (ADCmean) values of tumors obtained by diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging. We evaluated the prognostic value of the ADCmean for event-free survival (EFS) and overall survival (OS) among patients with uterine cervical cancer.
Methods/materials: We included 171 patients diagnosed as having International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage Ib to IIIb cervical cancer by pretreatment magnetic resonance imaging scans, regardless of therapeutic methods. In all patients and in patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC; n = 123), the optimal cutoff values of the tumor ADCmean for EFS and for OS were determined, respectively. The prognostic significance of the ADCmean was evaluated using univariate and multivariate Cox regression analyses.
Results: In the univariate analyses, the ADCmean values were significantly associated with negative effects on EFS both in all patients and in patients with SCC, while not being significantly associated with OS in both groups. In the multivariate analysis, ADCmean was an independent biomarker for EFS (P < 0.05) in patients with SCC along with lymph node metastasis and definitive surgery, whereas ADCmean was not independently significant in EFS in all patients.
Conclusions: The pretreatment ADCmean value of the tumor was an independent prognostic factor for EFS in International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics stage Ib to III SCC of the uterine cervix.