Magnetic resonance imaging of soft-tissue tumors of the extremities: A practical approach

Diagnosis of extremity soft-tissue tumors can be challenging. Characteristics of tumor margins can help precisely identify locally aggressive or non-aggressive behavior for surgical planning, but cannot differentiate benign from malignant lesions. Most malignant tumors can have inhomogeneous signals on T2-weighted images. Although a uniform signal on T2-weighted images can be a reliable indication of a benign lesion, a well-defined mass with homogeneous internal signal intensity does not definitively identify a benign lesion. Some common and distinctive soft-tissue lesions can have specific clinical and imaging features allowing a diagnosis without biopsy. These are known as determinate lesions. This illustrative report presents a diagnostic guide for extremity soft-tissue tumors based on tissue signal and morphological characteristics on magnetic resonance images. It is important for clinicians to be familiar with the imaging characteristics of common determinate lesions. (c) 2013 Baishideng Publishing Group Co., Limited. All rights reserved.