Type:
Educational Exhibit
Keywords:
Cancer, Contrast agent-intravenous, MR, Oncology, Neuroradiology peripheral nerve, Head and neck
Authors:
F. Wu1, L. Wang1, W. Wu1, D. Xiang2, L. Yan1; 1Wuhan/CN, 2Hubei 430022/CN
DOI:
10.26044/ecr2019/C-2016
Background
The nasopharynx is the uppermost portion of the pharynx,
begins at the posterior nasal choana and ends at the horizontal plane between the posterior edge of the hard palate and posterior pharyngeal wall.
When nasopharyngeal carcinoma occurs,
the primary tumor,
lymph node metastases as well as intracranial and bone invasion and perineural tumor spread (PNS) needed to be evaluated.
Once cranial nerves involved,
it classified as T4 stage.
PNS most commonly occurs in a contiguous retrograde fashion from the primary tumor toward the intracranial compartment.
In NPC,
PNS often involves branches of the trigeminal nerve (V).
The nasopharynx is best imaged by MRI,while ceMRN can provide additional information on PNS,
such as course, enhancement pattern,
signal intensity of the abnormal nerves.