Imaging-Based Diagnosis of Prostate Cancer: State of the Art
A special issue of Diagnostics (ISSN 2075-4418). This special issue belongs to the section "Medical Imaging and Theranostics".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2024) | Viewed by 15929
Special Issue Editor
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Worldwide, one million men receive a prostate cancer (PCa) diagnosis and 300,000 men die from PCa. PCa, therefore, poses a significant economic and societal burden. Proper patient care and management of prostate cancer relies on the correct detection of malignant lesions and assessment of potential metastases and further growth. Non-invasive measurement of Prostate Serum Antigen (PSA) provides pre-screening and preliminary assessment for possible need for medical intervention. The widely implemented PSA indicator has significantly reduced PCa mortality, although its low specificity leads to under and overtreatment. Following PSA detection above threshold levels, prostate cancer is standardly diagnosed and risk-stratified through 6–12 core transrectal ultrasound-based needle biopsies and supplemented by MRI. However, invasive biopsies risk inflicting pain, hemorrhage, and infection for the patient. In addition, misplacement of the needle may result in underestimating the tumor score and improperly assessing the status of the patient.
To improve PCa diagnosis, grading, and alleviate patient suffering, non-invasive strategies have been developed, such as through imaging of patients with suspected disease. The entire prostate gland can be non-invasively viewed, minimizing the likelihood of missing detection of the most malignant part of a tumor. Multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI), fused with Ultrasound (US), and Positron Emission Tomography combined with Computed Tomography (PET/CT), is playing an increasingly important role in the early diagnosis of prostate cancer. Prostate Imaging Reporting and Data System (PI-RADS) is a semi-quantitative protocol for radiologists to visually assess multiple MRI sequences and combine them to predict the prostate tumor’s potential aggressiveness. More quantitative approaches such as applying artificial intelligence (AI) techniques to images of patients with prostate cancer. AI harnesses the available image data, and the growing computing power is popular and successful.
This Special Issue of Diagnostics, entitled “Imaging-Based Diagnosis of Prostate Cancer: State of the Art”, compiles articles on a number of research areas, such as, but not restricted to:
- Scanning patients with suspected PCa with a number of imaging modalities, such as multi-parametric MRI, fused with ultrasound, Positron Emission Tomography combined with Computed Tomography (PET/CT) have been used to detect prostate cancer and localize the lesion.
- Enhancement to AI applied to MP-MRI through refinements of neural algorithms, texture generation.
- Combining patient data with imaging to predict clinically significant prostate cancer (csPCa).
- Applying supervised and unsupervised target detection algorithms to spatially registered multi-parametric MRI to assess prostate cancer.
- Spatial registration techniques.
- Incorporating and combining novel biomarkers with imaging to predict clinically significant prostate cancer.
- Comparison of results from different clinics, clinical situations (i.e., different magnetic fields).
Dr. Rulon R. Mayer
Guest Editor
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Keywords
- prostate cancer
- multi-parametric MRI (mpMRI)
- positron emission tomography (PET)
- computed tomography (CT)
- ultrasound (US)
- artificial intelligence (AI)
- convolutional neural network
- supervised target detection algorithms
- spatially registered multi-parametric MRI
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