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Clinical utility of diffusion‐weighted magnetic resonance imaging in prostate cancer
Author(s) -
Afaq Asim,
Koh DowMu,
Padhani Anwar,
van As Nicholas,
Sohaib S. Aslam
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
bju international
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.773
H-Index - 148
eISSN - 1464-410X
pISSN - 1464-4096
DOI - 10.1111/j.1464-410x.2011.10256.x
Subject(s) - prostate cancer , magnetic resonance imaging , medicine , prostate , diffusion mri , radiology , cancer , effective diffusion coefficient
Study Type – Diagnostic (exploratory cohort) Level of Evidence 2b What’s known on the subject? and What does the study add? This article reviews what is currently known about diffusion weighted MRI (DW‐MRI) in prostate cancer. This mini‐review concisely summarises, for clinical managing patients with prostate cancer, the clinical utility of diffusion weighted MRI. OBJECTIVE • To review the clinical utility of diffusion‐weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW‐MRI) in patients with prostate cancer. MATERIAL AND METHODS • The current literature on prostate cancer and DW‐MRI was reviewed. RESULTS • DW‐MRI can be readily acquired on a modern scanner with a short image acquisition time and no need for i.v. contrast medium. • The image contrast is based on the diffusion of water molecules and thus reflects tissue cellularity. • There is increasing evidence that DW‐ MRI improves the sensitivity and specificity of prostate cancer detection as well as the identification of tumour aggressiveness. • DW‐MRI is also showing substantial promise as a response biomarker for both local and metastatic disease CONCLUSIONS • DW‐MRI is proving to be a useful adjunct to conventional T2‐weighted MRI sequences. • The eventual role of DW‐MRI in combination with other MRI techniques for multiparametric assessment of prostate cancer needs to be defined further.