HIGH-RESOLUTION MR-IMAGING OF THE VAGINA

High-resolution magnetic resonance (MR) imaging with pelvic phased-arr ay and endoluminal coils provides information on vaginal abnormalities heretofore not available with other imaging modalities, Congenital an omalies of the vagina can result from disorders of lateral fusion of t he descending mullerian ducts and ascending urogenital sinus, developm ental absence of the mullerian ducts, or disorders of vertical fusion. In these conditions, MR imaging can depict the presence or absence of the vagina, cervix, and uterus and help determine whether these struc tures contain a septum or are duplicated or distended with blood, Gart ner duct cysts and Bartholin gland cysts have the same signal intensit y characteristics, but the former are located in the anterolateral asp ect of the proximal third of the vagina and the latter are in the post erolateral portion of the lower vagina, Entero-, vesico-, and ureterov aginal fistulas result from obstetric and surgical trauma, radiation t herapy, or inflammatory bowel disease, MR imaging has great potential for detection and characterization of these fistulas, MR imaging can b e used to detect and stage primary and secondary vaginal tumors, Howev er, neither signal intensity nor patterns of enhancement enable confid ent prediction of the histologic subtype of vaginal malignancy.