A comparison of whole-body MRI and CT for the staging of lymphoma.

OBJECTIVE: Our objective was to compare whole-body MRI and CT for the staging of lymphoma. CONCLUSION: Whole-body MRI represents an alternative to CT in the staging of lymphoma, with an ability to stage disease, identify lymph nodes greater than 1.2 cm, and the additional ability to evaluate for the presence or absence of disease spread to bone marrow. CT allows detection of more nodes (< 1.2 cm) than MRI but this does not alter tumor stage.