1H and 31P MR Spectroscopic Imaging of the prostate at 7 Tesla

Abstract

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in Dutch men. The treatment strongly depends on the stage and aggressiveness of the cancer. It is therefore very important to assess this very accurately. MRI scans can be used for this purpose. The location and size of prostate cancer can be recognized on an MR image of the prostate. It is also possible to estimate the aggressiveness of the cancer using MRI. During this PhD research, new techniques have been developed to perform MR of the human prostate at an MR scanner with an ultra-high magnetic field strength of 7 Tesla. The main advantage of such a super-scanner is the increase in signal strength. This allowed prostate imaging at an unprecedented resolution. Moreover, the distribution of several metabolites in the prostate could be spatially mapped using different spectroscopy techniques. These metabolites can not be measured at clinical MRI scanners within reasonable scan times. Patient measurements with these new techniques showed that some of the metabolites are possible biomarkers for prostate cancer aggressiveness.