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Published on: April 9, 2019
Impact on MRI technologist of a PI-QUAL v2 educational program on prostate MRI image quality assessment
Bruno Curia1, Chandra Bortolotto2, Leonardo Brizzi1
1Department of Clinical, Surgical, Diagnostic and Pediatric Sciences, University of Pavia, Pavia 27100, Italy.
Purpose:
The Prostate Imaging Quality scoring system version 2 (PI-QUAL v2) is a new scoring system used to assess the diagnostic quality of prostate magnetic resonance imaging (pMRI). This study investigated the impact of a focused training module on the ability of MRI technologists (MRI-Tech) and MRI-Tech students to evaluate pMRI image quality.
Methods:
Thirty-nine subjects including MRI-Tech students and experienced MRI-Tech with different levels of experience in pMRI participated in the study. The image quality of twenty pMRIs was evaluated before and after a dedicated lecture on pMRI image quality assessment using PI-QUAL v2 score. Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves were calculated for each scorer before and after the lecture, stratified by experience, and compared to the PI-QUAL v2 score assigned by a radiologist specialized in pMRI, using DeLong test.
Results:
A significant improvement in AUC of pMRI image quality assessment was observed: from the baseline (0.31 ± 0.05) to the post-intervention (0.97 ± 0.01), with an improvement of 0.66 (p < 0.001). The ROC curves stratified by experience, demonstrated an improvement of 0.44 [0.50 ± 0.07-0.94 ± 0.01] for II-year MRI-Tech students (p < 0.001), of 0.48 [0.46 ± 0.09-0.94 ± 0.01] for III-year MRI-Tech students (p < 0.032) and 0.60 [0.33 ± 0.10-0.93 ± 0.01] for board-certified MRI-Techs (p < 0.001).
Conclusions:
The PI-QUAL v2 training module improved the ability of both MRI-Tech students and board-certified MRI-Techs to assess the quality of pMRI images.
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