"Textural analysis of multiparametric MRI detects transition zone prostate cancer"

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate multiparametric-MRI (mpMRI) derived histogram textural-analysis parameters for detection of transition zone (TZ) prostatic tumour. METHODS: Sixty-seven consecutive men with suspected prostate cancer underwent 1.5T mpMRI prior to template-mapping-biopsy (TPM). Twenty-six men had 'significant' TZ tumour. Two radiologists in consensus matched TPM to the single axial slice best depicting tumour, or largest TZ diameter for those with benign histology, to define single-slice whole TZ-regions-of-interest (ROIs). Textural-parameter differences between single-slice whole TZ-ROI containing significant tumour versus benign/insignificant tumour were analysed using Mann Whitney U test. Diagnostic accuracy was assessed by receiver operating characteristic area under curve (ROC-AUC) analysis cross-validated with leave-one-out (LOO) analysis. RESULTS: ADC kurtosis was significantly lower (p < 0.001) in TZ containing significant tumour with ROC-AUC 0.80 (LOO-AUC 0.78); the difference became non-significant following exclusion of significant tumour from single-slice whole TZ-ROI (p = 0.23). T1-entropy was significantly lower (p = 0.004) in TZ containing significant tumour with ROC-AUC 0.70 (LOO-AUC 0.66) and was unaffected by excluding significant tumour from TZ-ROI (p = 0.004). Combining these parameters yielded ROC-AUC 0.86 (LOO-AUC 0.83). CONCLUSION: Textural features of the whole prostate TZ can discriminate significant prostatic cancer through reduced kurtosis of the ADC-histogram where significant tumour is included in TZ-ROI and reduced T1 entropy independent of tumour inclusion. KEY POINTS: MR textural features of prostate transition zone may discriminate significant prostatic cancer; Transition zone (TZ) containing significant tumour demonstrates a less peaked ADC histogram; TZ containing significant tumour reveals higher post-contrast T1-weighted homogeneity; The utility of MR texture analysis in prostate cancer merits further investigation