Quantitative MRI of uterine leiomyomas during triptorelin treatment: Reproducibility of volume assessment and predictability of treatment response

Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging is increasingly applied for the quantitative evaluation of uterine leiomyomas. MR is thought to be more accurate in comparison to ultrasound (US) techniques. MR signal intensity (SI) may prove to be predictive of myoma response to GnRH agonist treatment. This study aimed to evaluate the precision of uterine volume assessment by a parallel planimetric MR method and the accuracy of the ellipsoid formula based calculations from MR and US images. It was also attempted to analyze the precision of MR leiomyoma volume measurements and examine the relation between pretreatment myoma SI patterns and the response to agonist therapy. Twenty-seven women with a myomatous uterus were scanned three times during GnRH agonist treatment for 6 months. T₁- and T₂-weighted, as well as T₁ contrast-enhanced sequences of the uterus were obtained in the transverse and sagittal plane. Abdominal US of the uterus was performed with a conventional sector scanner. By the use of a software system for analysis of three-dimensional images obtained by MR, uterine volume was measured by a parallel planimetric method (MR-ROI) as well as the use of the ellipsoid formula (MR-ELL). Myoma volume was assessed by the MR-ROI method. SI of the myomas was estimated from selected tissue samples as well as from the integral myoma region of interest. By abdominal US, volume was assessed by the ellipsoid equation (US-ELL). Within- and between-observer and method reliability (Rw/Rb) was calculated from mean squares obtained by analysis of variance. For uterine volume assessment, reliability between observers and between methods when the MR-ROI and MR-ELL methods were analyzed was excellent. For the US-ELL measurements, the between-observer reliability was limited. Moreover, the reliability of the US-ELL was low when the MR-ROI method was used as the standard. Myoma volume assessment with the MR-ROI method showed high between-observer and between-method agreement. The myoma/fat SI ratio and the mean SI coefficient of variation failed to show a correlation with the degree of response to triptorelin treatment of individual myomas. In MR uterine volume assessment the MR-ELL method is very accurate compared with the more complicated MR-ROI method. The agreement between MR and US is limited. Therefore, the ellipsoid method on MR images is to be regarded as the method of choice for quantitative assessment of uterine volume response to hormonal treatment. Myoma SI patterns were shown to be of no value in the response prediction of myomas to treatment with GnRH agonists.