ROLE OF COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY IN THE EVALUATION OF COLORECTAL LESIONS.

Computed Tomography (CT) has become the most important imaging technique for evaluation of the abdomen and pelvis. CT is used to examine patients with acute abdominal complaints, intestinal obstruction, inflammatory conditions, known or suspected malignancy, abdominal and pelvic trauma. Recent technological advances and accumulated experience in image interpretation suggest that substantial information regarding colorectal lesions can be obtained by CT. This study aims at evaluating the accuracy of CT in characterizing large bowel lesions as benign/inflammatory or malignant conditions, and in suspected cases of malignancy its accuracy in tumor staging.