Assessing the Feasibility of PROPELLER DWI for Prostate Imaging in Patients with Metal Implants

Motivation: Propeller-DWI could reduce significant image distortion from metal implants. Goal(s): This study aims to investigate the improvement of image quality and the feasibility of ADC values in PROPELLER DWI for prostate with metal implants. Approach: We collected DWI images from 88 male participants. Our results showed the reduced distortion in the PROPELLER-DWI images, along with a strong liner correlation of ADC values between two DWI methods. Results: Based on the lesion detection rate of mean ADC values, the optimal cut-off ADC value for PROPELLER-DWI in tumor and lesion diagnosis should be set higher (1400x10-6mm2/s) than the cut-off ADC value for clinical EPI-DWI (930x10-6mm2/s). Impact: This study indicates reduced distortion of tissues near metal implants in PROPELLER-DWI and a strong linear correlation of ADC values between PROPELLER-DWI and EPI-DWI, suggesting PROPELLER-DWI would be valuable for the diagnosis of prostate cancer in patients with metal implants.