Hi everyone!

As I said in my last post, the brightness and darkness of certain areas on the MRI scans indicates the existence of prostate cancer and this week I found out which kinds of scans and which area of the scans give the most vital information. This came pretty close to answering a major part of my research question so I was very relieved! If you recall, my research question was “When a patient can’t complete an MRI scan, can a ‘partial’ exam be used as a substitute?” And with the information I learned this week, I gathered what this ‘partial’ exam would mainly constitute of.

In a prostate protocol the three most important scans are the t2, diffusion, and perfusion. What does that mean? Good question.

I’ve mentioned t2 before and as a recap it’s an imaging technique where liquid will appear bright and any fat will appear dark. Diffusion is an imaging technique that uses the random movement of water molecules to generate contrast in MR images. It maps the diffusion process of different molecules, mainly water, in biological tissues. Since molecular diffusion reflects interactions with many obstacles such as other macromolecules, fibers and membranes, and an MRI creates scans using these molecular diffusion patterns to reveal details about tissue architecture. Perfusion MRI is based on the analysis of MRI images after the peripheral injection of a contrast agent. Perfusion itself refers to the process of a body delivering blood to a capillary bed in its capillary tissue and perfusion imaging exploits vascular abnormalities and altered flow dynamics that lead to changes in blood volume and flow.

I will explore how the appearance of the prostate in these three images indicates cancer. Until next time!