Longitudinally Evaluation of Locally Advanced Rectal Carcinoma Treated with Preoperative Chemotherapy using Time-Dependent Diffusion MRI

The effectiveness of neoadjuvant Chemotherapy (NACT) is most commonly assessed by the change in tumor size based on conventional rectal cancer imaging. However, morphologic changes often occur later during treatment. Time-Dependent Diffusion MRI (TD MRI) is a novel MRI tool for depicting cellular microstructures. This study aimed to investigate the feasibility of Time-Dependent Diffusion MRI–based microstructural mapping for noninvasively characterizing cellular properties of LARC during NACT.