Multimodality magnetic resonance imaging of prostate cancer.

Overview

The purpose of this article is to review both routine T2-weighted and new MRI techniques in the imaging of prostate cancer (PCa) for focal therapy. T2-weighted imaging, knowledge of MRI prostate zonal anatomy, cancer morphology, and intraprostatic tumor spread remain essential for clinical PCa imaging; however, new techniques, such as dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI, diffusion-weighted imaging, and magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging yield significant improvements in identification and volume estimation. Potential advantages of 3 Tesla MRI are adequate imaging without an endorectal coil. Future studies should work toward helping define standard, reproducible approaches to multimodality MRI and image reporting for research and clinical practice.