STUDIES ON THE DETECTION OF SMALL ENDOMETRIAL IMPLANTS BY MAGNETIC-RESONANCE-IMAGING USING A FAT-SATURATION TECHNIQUE

To assess the usefulness of fat-saturated magnetic resonance (MR) imag ing in detecting small endometrial implants, 258 pigmented lesions of endometriosis from 80 consecutive patients with histophatologically di agnosed pelvic endometriosis were compared using fat-saturated and con ventional MR imaging. MR imaging was performed with a 1.5-tesla superc onducting magnet with spin echo T-1-, T-2-, and fat-saturated T-1-weig hted images. Both conventional MR images and fat-saturated MR images p ermitted identification of almost all endometriomas > 10 mm in diamete r. With conventional MR imaging, 29 endometrial implants measuring < 1 0 mm in diameter were detected. One hundred and seven lesions were det ected by fat-saturated MR imaging. However, conventional MR images dem onstrated only 4 lesions among these 111 small endometrial implants th at measured < 5 mm in diameter. The addition of fat-saturated MR imagi ng increased the detection rate to 55 of 111 lesions. Fat-saturated MR imaging can, therefore, be useful in detecting small endometrial impl ants.