Diffusion Weighted MRI of the Prostate: Which Tumours Are We Able to Detect, and How Reliably?

Lauren J. Bains¹, Maria Triantafyllou¹, Johannes M. Froehlich¹, Giuseppe Petralia¹, Daniel Chong¹, Harriet C. Thoeny¹

In this study we performed an assessment the sensitivity and specificity of the detection of primary prostate tumours in patients with and without primary prostate cancer, using prostatectomy as a gold standard. Inter-reader agreement between 3 independent readers was good (&[kappa] = 0.57). Sensitivity was 88-91% overall and specificity was 56-72%, despite the presence of TN in this cohort. High grade (Gleason score &[ge] 7) cancers were detected with a better sensitivity. False positives were related to the presence of prostatic hyperplasia and neoplasia, while false negatives were related to small tumours with low Gleason score.