 Good morning everybody. I am Mukeshari Singhani. I'm a radiologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and this morning we're going to talk about MR and its role in rectal cancer. The way we are going to structure it today is initially I'm going to talk about technique in terms of what are the dos and don'ts in terms of performing a rectal MR. We'll talk a little bit about anatomy which is relevant and pertinent to patients in rectal cancer. And then we're going to look at some cases where we are going to talk about staging and how best to use MR for staging these patients. Now one other important point to emphasize before you actually sit down and start looking at a rectal MR, it is very critical and essential that before you actually look at the MR in a patient with rectal cancer and apply the template and use all the principles that we are going to be discussing today. It is extremely important that the patient has had or undergone a biopsy and it has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that the patient does have rectal cancer. We cannot differentiate on many occasions between low rectal cancer and anal cancers using MR. And one should not make an attempt to do that. It's preferable to have the biopsy before you sit down. And the reason for that is very simple is the overall staging and treatment of rectal cancer is markedly different from that of the anal cancer. And hence it is extremely important that before you use the template for rectal cancer staging that you have a biopsy that clearly states that this patient has rectal cancer and not anal cancer.