MR Fingerprinting of the Prostate - Towards Improved Patient Care with High Speed Quantitative Imaging

The patient is at the center of all medical interventions and innovations. For those with prostate cancer, the pathway for new patients has scope for improvement. MRI is an important and necessary part of that pathway, but scanning capacity is often stretched, and there is need for effective and efficient scan techniques. Beyond mere detection of lesions, the modality has potential to differentiate and categorize the clinical significance of prostate cancer. By virtue of quantitative imaging, the determination of biomarkers could lead to a non-invasive method of prostate cancer diagnosis. The Prostate Imaging Reporting and Data System (PIRADS) scoring is a standardized system of acquiring and categorizing multi-parametric-MR images (mp-MRI) of the prostate. The PIRADS system works to grade to clinical significance of prostate cancer, however this relies on qualitative information.

Patients referred for a typical MRI of the prostate will in addition receive the MR Fingerprinting scan, which will add about 8 minutes to their time on the scanner. The direct comparison of the fingerprint maps and multi-parametric images can then be made. Conclusions will be drawn with focus to potential improvement of the PIRADS protocol.

The main aim of the project is therefor to implement, validate, and optimize sequences for MR Fingerprinting of the prostate.