Streamlining staging of lung and colorectal cancer with whole body MRI; study protocols for two multicentre non-randomised single-arm prospective diagnostic accuracy studies (Streamline C and Streamline L)

摘要

Background and aimsRapid and accurate cancer staging following diagnosis underpins patient management, in particular the identification of distant metastatic disease. Current staging guidelines recommend sequential deployment of various imaging platforms such as computerised tomography (CT) and positron emission tomography (PET) which can be time and resource intensive and onerous for patients. Recent studies demonstrate that whole body magnetic resonance Imaging (WB-MRI) may stage cancer efficiently in a single visit, with potentially greater accuracy than current staging investigations. The Streamline trials aim to evaluate whether WB-MRI increases per patient detection of metastases in non-small cell lung and colorectal cancer compared to standard staging pathways.