Vaginal cancer: Why should we care? Anatomy, staging and in-depth imaging-based review of vaginal malignancies focusing on MRI and PET/CT

Vaginal cancer often poses a challenge for clinical and radiological diagnosis, and its risk factors, progression, and treatment are still poorly established. Although vaginal malignancies are rare, even globally, their rates have increased due to the increased access to healthcare and the evolution...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Clinical imaging Vol. 84; pp. 65 - 78
Main Authors:	Albuquerque, Kamila Seidel, Zoghbi, Karina Kuhl, Gomes, Natália Borges Nunes, Libânio, Bruna Brandão, Souza e Silva, Tábata Xavit, de Araújo, Eduardo Medeiros, Lewin, Fabio, Pedroso, Maria Helena Naves Inácio, Torres, Ulysses S., D'Ippolito, Giuseppe, Racy, Douglas Jorge, Bernardo, Graziela Campos Oliveira
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	United States Elsevier Inc 01-04-2022 Elsevier Limited
Subjects:	Anatomy Biopsy Bladder Cancer Cervix Computed tomography Epidemiology Female Fluorodeoxyglucose F18 Genital cancers Gynecology Health services HIV Human immunodeficiency virus Human papillomavirus Humans Imaging Immunization Infections Lesions Lymphatic system Magnetic resonance imaging Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods Medical imaging Medical prognosis MRI Mucosa Muscles Neoplasm Neoplasm Staging Neoplasms Pelvis PET/CT Positron emission Positron Emission Tomography Computed Tomography - methods Positron-Emission Tomography - methods Prognosis Radiation therapy Risk analysis Risk factors Tomography Tumors Vagina Vaginal Neoplasms - diagnostic imaging Veins & arteries Womens health Neoplasm Vagina cancer MRI Imaging PET/CT
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Summary:	Vaginal cancer often poses a challenge for clinical and radiological diagnosis, and its risk factors, progression, and treatment are still poorly established. Although vaginal malignancies are rare, even globally, their rates have increased due to the increased access to healthcare and the evolution of screening measures and diagnostic methods. Because the vaginal cavity is a virtual space, it can harbor lesions that often go unnoticed and, not infrequently, diagnosed belatedly. MRI and, more recently, PET/CT are part of the imaging armamentarium that have already been incorporated into the clinical staging and management of gynecological tumors, allowing excellent morphological characterization of the lesion, its topography and relationship with adjacent structures for the investigation of disease dissemination, overcoming limitations of clinical methods, such as speculum examination, usually restricted to observation only of the superficial characteristics of these lesions. Some vaginal neoplasms have characteristic MRI patterns, which, combined with expert knowledge of anatomy, allow identification of local macroscopic details (such as the mucosal, submucosal, and muscle layers). Furthermore, the application of PET/CT, already well established for identifying systemic disease, has a large impact on patient prognosis. The objective of this work is to review the epidemiological aspects of primary vaginal cancers and the imaging patterns of their main histological subtypes based on MRI and PET/CT, with a brief discussion of the local anatomy, oncological staging, and treatment. •MRI allows excellent morphological characterization of vaginal cancer.•PET/CT is valuable in the investigation of disease dissemination.•MRI patterns combined with expert knowledge of anatomy allow identification of local macroscopic details.
Bibliography:	ObjectType-Article-2 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-3 content type line 23 ObjectType-Review-1
ISSN:	0899-7071 1873-4499
DOI:	10.1016/j.clinimag.2022.01.009