Combination of ⁶⁸Ga-PSMA PET/CT and Multiparametric MRI Improves the Detection of Clinically Significant Prostate Cancer: A Lesion-by-Lesion Analysis

Abstract

Our purpose was to explore whether ⁶⁸Ga-PSMA PET/CT alone (PET/CT) or in combination with multiparametric MRI (PET/MRI) can improve the detection of clinically significant prostate cancer (PCa). <b>Methods:</b> We retrospectively enrolled 54 patients who underwent both MRI and PET/CT before radical prostatectomy. Regions of interest on MR images, PET/CT images, and pathologic images were marked. A lesion was defined as a region of interest marked on images obtained with any of the 3 modalities. All lesions were characterized using the prostate imaging reporting and data system (PI-RADS), the molecular imaging PSMA expression score, and the pathologic results and analyzed. Diagnostic performance was analyzed by receiver-operating-characteristic analysis. Specific improvement for lesions with different PI-RADS scores was analyzed using the net reclassification index (NRI). <b>Results:</b> In total, 90 lesions from 54 patients were analyzed, among which 66 lesions represented clinically significant PCa. Receiver-operating-characteristic analysis showed PET/MRI to perform better than MRI in detecting clinically significant PCa (change in area under the curve, 0.06; 95% confidence interval, 0.01-0.12; <i>P</i> < 0.05). With the calculated cutoff, PET/MRI performed significantly better than MRI (NRI, 21.9%; <i>P</i> < 0.01), with an improvement in sensitivity (89% vs. 76%, <i>P</i> < 0.01) at no sacrifice of specificity (96% vs. 88%, <i>P</i> > 0.05). Improvement in diagnosing clinically significant PCa occurred for lesions classified as PI-RADS 3 (NRI, 66.7%; <i>P</i> < 0.01). <b>Conclusion:</b> PET/MRI improves the detection of clinically significant PCa for PI-RADS 3 lesions.