3 T v 1.5 T MRI prostate with total hip prosthesis
Multiparametric MRI prostate has rapidly increased in popularity in the last three years following the release of PI-RADS v2 in 2015. It is a robust reporting protocol and can be used for both 1.5 T and 3 T MRI scanners although 3 T has become the standard especially for DWI sequences with long b values (DWI being the keystone to cancer diagnosis, especially in the peripheral zone). Susceptibility artifact is heightened with the use of 3 T especially in relation to bowel gas in the rectum and any metal hardware such as a hip prosthesis. This has been addressed to some degree by meticulous bowel preparation and use of different EPI sequences for DWI acquisition including read-out segmented multishot EPI rather than single shot effectively reducing the Te. Modern 1.5 T MRI of the prostate with improved gradients can produce very diagnostic images and, as in this case, are less prone to susceptibility artifact.