Related Experiment Video
Updated: Apr 17, 2026
A Cognitive Fusion-guided Prostate Biopsy Using Multiparametric Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Transrectal Ultrasound
Published on: March 21, 2025
Prostate cancer discrimination in the peripheral zone with a reduced field-of-view T(2)-mapping MRI sequence
Fernando I Yamauchi1, Tobias Penzkofer2, Andriy Fedorov3
1Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA; Instituto de Radiologia do Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
Objectives:
To evaluate the performance of T2 mapping in discriminating prostate cancer from normal prostate tissue in the peripheral zone using a practical reduced field-of-view MRI sequence requiring less than 3 minutes of scan time.
Materials And Methods:
Thirty-six patients with biopsy-proven peripheral zone prostate cancer without prior treatment underwent routine multiparametric MRI at 3.0T with an endorectal coil. An Inner-Volume Carr-Purcell-Meiboom-Gill imaging sequence that required 2.8 minutes to obtain data for quantitative T2 mapping covering the entire prostate gland was added to the routine multiparametric protocol. Suspected cancer (SC) and suspected healthy (SH) tissue in the peripheral zone were identified in consensus by three radiologists and were correlated with available biopsy results. Differences in mean T2 values in SC and SH regions-of-interest (ROIs) were tested for significance using unpaired Student's two-tailed t-test. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was used to assess the optimal threshold T2 value for cancer discrimination.
Results:
ROI analyses revealed significantly (p<0.0001) shorter T2 values in SC (85.4±12.3ms) compared to SH (169.6±38.7ms). An estimated T2 threshold of 99ms yielded a sensitivity of 92% and a specificity of 97% for prostate cancer discrimination.
Conclusions:
Quantitative values derived from this clinically practical T2-mapping sequence allow high precision discrimination between healthy and cancerous peripheral zone in the prostate.
