CLINICAL ONCOLOGY AND RESEARCH | ISSN 2613-4942 Available online at www.sciencerepository.org Science Repository * Correspondence to: Jean-Camille Mattei, Secretariat Orthopedie 3A Pavillon Mistral Hopital Nord, Chemin des Bourrely, 13015 Marseille, France; Tel: +33631502927; Fax: +33491966081; E-mail: mattei.orthopedie@gmail.com © 2019 Jean-Camille Mattei. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.31487/j.COR.2019.6.02 Research Article Are We Heading to the Future of Musculoskeletal Tumor Imaging with Ultra-High Field 7T MRI? Jean-Camille Mattei 1,2,3* , Arthur Varoquaux 4 , Alexandre Foure 3 , Arnaud Le Troter 3 , Alexandre Rochwerger 1 , Sébastien Salas 5 , Sandrine Guis 6 , Corinne Bouvier 7 , Maxime Guye 3 , Christophe Chagnaud 4 and David Bendahan 3 1 Service d’orthopédie Unité 3èmeA, Hôpital Nord, Chemin des Bourrély, 13015 Marseille 2 Génétique Médicale et génomique fonctionnelle, Pr Levy UMR S910 Inserm, Université Aix Marseille 2, Faculté Timone, Boulevard Jean Moulin, 13005 Marseille 3 Center for Magnetic Résonnance in Biology and Medecine, Hôpital de la Timone, Boulevard Jean Moulin, 13005 Marseille 4 Service de Radiologie, Hôpital de la Conception, Boulevard Baille, 13005 Marseille 5 Service d’Oncologie Médicale du Pr Duffaud, Hôpital de la Timone, Boulevard Jean Moulin, 13005 Marseille 6 Service de Rhumatologie, Hôpital Nord, Chemin des Bourrély, 13015 Marseille 7 Laboratoire d’histo-pathologie du Pr. Figarella-Branger, Hôpital de la Timone, Boulevard Jean Moulin, 13005 Marseille A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received: 01 November, 2019 Accepted: 18 November, 2019 Published: 14 January, 2020 Keywords: 7T MRI ultra-high field sarcoma oncology tumor assessment A B S T R A C T Background and objectives: Sarcoma preoperative planning critically depends on MRI, sometimes uninformative when compartments barriers or critical structures are involved. objective: to prospectively assess the feasibility and the potential of 7T MRI in sarcoma. Methods: Two patients with femoral chondrosarcoma were CT and MRI (1.5 and 7T) scanned with T1W, T2W, GRE and DTI sequences. Image quality and characteristics of the tumors were compared between these modalities. Results: In-plane resolution was higher at 7T as compared to 1.5T MRI, tumor delineation was more reliable and soft tissue involvement was clearer. DT imaging and corresponding ADC mapping allowed a clear distinction between edema and tumor and identified tumor involvement of collateral ligament allowing healthy structures sparing with histopathology confirmation. 7T MRI was also able to define cortical reaction as precisely as CT imaging. Conclusion: Musculoskeletal tumours UHF-MRI is promising. Higher resolution and enhanced signal to noise ratio improved tumoral assessment, infiltration and cortex changes. One could expect this non- radiating technique to replace CT investigation for bone tumours assessment and open new perspectives in the fields of vascular or nerve salvage and response to chemo/radiotherapy. Healthy tissue sparing might be facilitated with impacts on function, complication or reconstruction type. © 2019 Jean-Camille Mattei. Hosting by Science Repository. All rights reserved. Introduction Sarcomas are generally handled by a complete surgical resection and for some histological subtypes, it represents the only therapeutic solution [1, 2]. Curative surgery is commonly targeting a complete removal of the tumor through en-bloc resection which necessarily ends up with the removal of healthy tissues. This type of surgery is based on a preoperative MRI investigation within a tight cooperation between expert radiologists and surgeons. The main issue for this type of surgery is related to the potential sparing of limb and can be compromised if vessels or nerves are involved by the tumor. On that basis, a proper resection protocol is intended to perform a safe oncological surgery and to spare these structures [2]. Although imaging details provided by MRI