Researchers have found that micro-ultrasound may be a suitable alternative to MRI for predicting pathological tumor volume in prostate cancer lesions. A study published in Urologic Oncology: Seminars and Original Investigations has shown that while micro-ultrasound can predict prostate volume more accurately than MRI, the latter can identify more tumors.
The study, conducted by Dr. Arnas Rakauskas and colleagues from Lausanne University Hospital, found that both modalities tend to slightly underestimate pathological tumor and prostate volume. However, the researchers believe that their findings suggest that micro-ultrasound can be a useful tool in planning focal treatments or radical prostatectomy strategy.
The study used high-frequency micro-ultrasound (29 MHz) and evaluated its accuracy against MRI in predicting pathological tumor volume of single lesions. The results showed that micro-ultrasound found a larger median tumor size than T2-weighted MRI, diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI), and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) sequences, but these were all short of the median tumor size detected by pathology.
The comparison between modalities in predicting prostate tumor volume showed that micro-ultrasound underestimated pathological tumor volume by 0.15 ml on average, while DWI underestimated it by 0.26 ml. MRI and micro-ultrasound also underestimated the pathological prostate volume by 6 ml and 3 ml, respectively.
Interestingly, the study found that MRI detected 27% more total tumors than micro-ultrasound, but when only posterior tumors were counted, micro-ultrasound had a comparable detection rate to the MRI. The researchers believe that their findings could be used in generating AI models for live prostate lesion estimation during treatments.
Overall, the study suggests that individualized prostatectomy and focal therapy can lessen treatment-related toxicity while benefiting prostate cancer patients, and both micro-ultrasound and MRI can be useful tools in this process.
Source: https://www.auntminnieeurope.com/clinical-news/ultrasound/article/15740080/microultrasound-matches-mri-in-predicting-prostate-tumor-volume