MR-imaging of the prostate: diagnosis and treatment improvement

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate prostate MR-imaging solutions that intend to improve the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer. In total, a number of two techniques/methods were studied. At first the application of an in-room mobile touching device (MTD) to monitor and target MR-guided prostate biopsies (MRGB) were examined.The second project in thesis focused on the treatment improvement of prostate cancer. The goal of the project was to examine whether ex vivo prostate MR is a feasible means to identify positive surgical margins (PSM) in a radical prostatectomy specimen. The MTD can be introduced into the magnetic field that is prevalent in the MR room as long as the device is kept at a distance of 50 centimetres from the bore entrance of the MRI. Furthermore, the MTD maintains it functionalities at that distance. By applying the described method for real-time MR guided prostate biopsies using a MTD it is possible to successfully target artificial CSRs with a high accuracy. Morover, it enables needle guide targeting within a favourable time (mean = 01:30, mm:ss) compared to the current clinical practice. High field (7 T) MRI is not able to predict positive surgical margins in fresh radical prostatectomy specimens as it showed poor performance compared with histopathological examination as the reference standard. However, conducting future research would be legitimate given the methodological limitations that attributed to the poor performance.