Performance of conventional MRI and endoscopy in assessing complete tumor response following immunotherapy-based neoadjuvant therapy for rectal cancer

Abstract

Purpose

Endoscopy and MRI are essential tools for assessing treatment response in locally advanced rectal cancer (LARC). However, their accuracy in identifying pathological complete response (pCR; ie, ypT0N0) following immunotherapy-based neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (iNCRT) remains uncertain. This study evaluates the performance of endoscopy and MRI in reflecting ypT0 status and assesses MRI efficacy for lymph node metastasis in LARC following iNCRT.

Materials and methods

A retrospective study was conducted on LARC patients who underwent total mesorectal excision after iNCRT between March 2022 and June 2023. A cohort of 130 NCRT-only patients was matched in a 1:2 ratio based on age, sex, and clinical stage. Restaging assessments included endoscopy, and T2-weighted/diffusion-weighted MRI (T2DWI) for primary tumors, as well as MRI for lymph node evaluation. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative predictive value were calculated, and areas under the receiver operating characteristic curves (AUCs) were determined.

Results

Among 130 NCRT-treated patients (mean age 57.1 years; 90 male patients), T2DWI showed comparable specificity to endoscopy (85.1 % vs. 88.8 %) but limited sensitivity (50 % vs. 16.7 %) in diagnosing ypT0. In 65 patients (mean age 56.6 years; 45 male patients) treated with iNCRT, MRI and endoscopy showed poor performance for ypT0, with AUCs ranging from 0.54 to 0.57. A 3 mm short-axis diameter cutoff effectively identified ypN0 status (AUC 0.76, 95 % CI: 0.64–0.86).

Conclusion

Endoscopy and MRI cannot reliably identify ypT0 status, but a 3 mm cutoff for short-axis diameter on MRI may assist in diagnosing ypN0 in LARC patients treated with iNCRT.