Revealing Invisible Prostate Cancer with VERDICT-MRI

Motivation: Prostate multi-parametric (mp)MRI misses 10-20% of PCa, presenting a need for enhanced imaging techniques. Goal(s): To determine if VERDICT-MRI, when used alongside mpMRI, can improve the detection and characterization of mpMRI-invisible lesions. Approach: We identify patients with mpMRI-invisible lesions from the Histo-MRI clinical trial (n=11). We use slice-to-slice matched whole-slide histology and MRI. We analyze differences in histological cell density, epithelial fraction and VERDICT intracellular volume fraction between mpMRI-visible and -invisible lesions. Results: Using VERDICT-MRI improves the sensitivity of detection of invisible lesions, particularly with high cell density and epithelial fraction. Impact: Integrating VERDICT-MRI into clinical imaging could enhance detection of previously invisible prostate cancer lesions, allowing for more precise stratification and more informed, personalized treatment strategies, potentially improving patient outcomes.