[The use of contrast media in magnetic resonance tomography of head and neck tumors].

The ranking of MRT was evaluated retrospectively in 37 patients with clinically confirmed malignant neoplasms of the head and neck. The results were compared with the clinical and endoscopic findings and with computed tomographic scans (CT). MR consistently showed superior soft tissue definition and extent of disease compared with CT. However, the sensitivity of both methods was comparably high. With the exception of tumours of the floor of the mouth and the anterior third of tongue the use of paramagnetic contrast material improved image quality compared with T2-sequences. MRT was superior to CT in imaging the post-treatment head and neck. Even here, contrast enhanced T1-images improved contrast between recurrent tumour and adjacent soft tissues, although in some cases false positive diagnosis was caused by postradiation oedema and inflammatory changes.