Multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging acquisition and interpretation

All patients underwent mp-MRI using a Siemens TrioTrim Somatom 3-Tesla magnet (Siemens) with a trans-abdominal external-phased array coil. The slice thickness was 3.5 mm. According to PI-RADS technical standards, the sequences included T₁ -weighted images (T1WI), T₂ -weighted images (T2WI), diffusion-weighted images (DWI) with high b-value of 1500 s/mm² and dynamical contrast enhanced (DCE) with a temporal resolution of 10 s.

After examination, MR images from 490 patients were presented to two genitourinary radiologists (reader1 [S.W.] with 8 years of experience, and reader2 [G.X.] with 5 years of experience in interpreting prostate MR images) in random order. The readers were blinded to each other and to the clinical information of patients. Each reader retrospectively reviewed the images independently and determined a PI-RADS score by applying the PI-RADS v2.1 criteria. ⁷ Subsequently, they compared their findings and difficult cases were assessed in consensus.