Abstract: Objective The aim of this study was to explore application of MRI multi-sequence scan in the preoperative diagnosis of tumor staging in patients with primary gallbladder cancer. Methods 53 patients with primary gallbladder cancer were encountered in our hospital between March 2022 and March 2025, and all had tumor resection after multi-sequence MR scan. The diagnosis was confirmed by post-operational histo-pathological examination. Results Of the 53 patients with primary gallbladder cancer, the pathological study found tumor stageⅠ in 11 cases, stage Ⅱ in 15 cases and stage Ⅲ in 27 cases, and low differentiation in 21 cases, middle differentiation in 23 cases and high differentiation in 9 cases; the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) in stage Ⅲ foci was (1.0±0.1), much lower than [(1.5±0.2), P<0.05] in stage Ⅰ or [(1.2±0.2), P<0.05] in stage Ⅱ, while there were no significant differences among different cell differentiation groups(P>0.05); conventional MRI diagnosed tumor stage Ⅰ, Ⅱ and Ⅲ in 10 cases, 18 cases and 25 cases, while they were 9 cases, 18 cases and 26 cases by multi-sequence MR scan, with the accuracy of 90.6%, much higher than 67.9(P<0.05) by conventional MRI. Conclusion Multi-sequence of MRI scan is beneficial to improve the diagnostic accuracy of the tumor staging in patients with primary gallbladder cancer, which might help surgeons make an appropriate operation plan preoperatively.

Key words: Primary gallbladder cancer, Surgical resection, Tumor stage, Magnetic resonance imaging, Diffusion-weighted imaging, Diagnosis