Whole-body (WB) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging has increasingly been used for the screening of bone and soft-tissue metastases in patients with prostate cancer (1). A limitation for its implementation is the 45-60 minutes duration of current WB MRI examinations. Conventional WB MR imaging studies consisted of anatomical two-dimensional (2D) T1-weighted and fat-suppressed fluid-sensitive (proton-density fat-saturated (PDFS) or short-tau inversion-recovery (STIR)) and of a functional diffusion-weighted imaging sequence. Recent research has confirmed the feasibility of replacing the 2D anatomical sequences by a single three-dimensional (3D) T1-weighted fast spin echo (FSE) sequence (2).
This study will assess and compare the diagnostic performances and image quality of two WB 3D T1-weighted MR imaging sequences for bone and node staging in patients with prostate cancer : the FSE sequence and a gradient echo (GE) sequence. The latter sequence's main feature is its acquisition time of approximately 1.5 minutes, compared to 18 min for the FSE sequence, reducing the exam's acquisition time, patient discomfort and increasing machine availability.
The aim of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of the replacement of the WB 3D T1-weighted FSE MR imaging sequence by the WB 3D T1-weighted GE MR imaging sequence.
