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Good morning, everybody.

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Uh, I am Mukesh Harisinghani.

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I'm a radiologist at Massachusetts

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General Hospital in Boston.

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And, uh, this morning we are going to talk

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about MR and its role in rectal cancer.

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The way we are going to structure it today

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is, um, initially I'm going to talk about

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technique in terms of what are the do's and

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don'ts in terms of performing a rectal MR.

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We'll talk a little bit about anatomy, which is

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relevant and pertinent to patients in rectal cancer.

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And then we're going to look at some cases

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where we are going to talk about staging and

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how best to use MR for staging these patients.

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And now one other important point to emphasize,

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uh, before we actually sit down and start

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looking at a rectal MR, it is very critical and

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essential that before you actually look at the

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MR in a patient with rectal cancer and

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apply the template and use all the principles

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that we are going to be discussing today.

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It is extremely important that the patient

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has had or undergone a biopsy, and it, it

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has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt

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that the patient does have rectal cancer.

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We cannot differentiate on many occasions between low

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rectal cancer and anal cancers using MR, and one should

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not make an attempt to do that. It's preferable to have

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the biopsy before you sit down, and the reason for that

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is very simple: the overall staging and treatment

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of rectal cancer is markedly different from that of

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anal cancer. And hence it is extremely important

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that before you use the template for rectal cancer

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staging, you have a biopsy that clearly states that

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this patient has rectal cancer and not anal cancer.