Assessment of the compliance with minimum acceptable technical parameters proposed by PI-RADS v2 guidelines in multiparametric prostate MRI acquisition in tertiary referral hospitals in the Republic of Turkey.

PURPOSE Although the clinical use of multiparametric prostate magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI) is increasing, the adherence to parameters for mpMRI which had been described in the Prostate Imaging-Reporting and Data System version 2 (PI-RADSv2) for an optimum image acquisition is unknown. In this paper, we aimed to determine the compliance with the minimum acceptable technical parameters for prostate mpMRI defined by PI-RADSv2 in tertiary care centers in Turkey. METHODS We sent a survey to all radiology departments of tertiary referral hospitals in Turkey (n = 120) to evaluate their adherence to PI-RADSv2 technical specifications. Statistical analysis was performed using Chi-square, Fisher Exact, ANOVA, and the Student`s t tests. The cut-off values for image acquisition times were also determined with ROC analysis. P - values <0.05 were considered statistically significant. RESULTS One hundred and eleven clinics responded to our survey (response rate = 92.5%). Prostate MRI was reported to be performed in 61 centers. 26 (42.6%) centers used 3 T (Tesla) scanner while 1.5T was used in 35 (57.4%) centers. The adherence to slice thickness (ST), in-plane phase and frequency resolutions on T2WI were 68.9%, 41% and 9.8% respectively. The adherence to the same parameters on DWI were higher compared to T2WI (85.2%, 62.3% and 78.7%, respectively). In comparative analysis, the adherence to ST, field of view (FOV) and in-plane phase resolution on T2WI were higher for 3T compared with 1.5T scanners (P = 0.004, P = 0.041 and P = 0.001, respectively). T2WI acquisition time was significantly longer for the centers adhered to T2WI-FOV (P = 0.034) and in-plane T2WI phase resolution (P = 0.028). The DWI scan time was significantly longer when they adhered to DWI-FOV (P = 0.014) and b-value≥1400s/mm2 (P = 0.008). The calculated cut-off values were 220 seconds in T2WI and 312 seconds in DWI to ensure the compliance with voxel sizes and b-value criterias. CONCLUSION The tertiary referral centers in Turkey did not meet most of the technical specifications of PI-RADSv2 during prostate MRI acquisition. Awareness to the minimum acceptable technical parameters of mpMRI should be increased to potentially improve the quality of prostate cancer imaging.