For Immediate Release, 1 October 2015

International radiological bodies* have agreed on a standard for how doctors evaluate MRI to confirm a diagnosis of prostate cancer. This promises to reduce the number of over diagnosis of insignificant cancers by to up to 89%. The new procedure also allows radiologists to identify up to 13% more life-threatening tumors than current procedures. The standards of how to acquire the MR-images and how to report them are published today** in the peer-reviewed journal, European Urology, the journal of the European Association of Urology.

Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men, with a European incidence rate of 214 cases per 1000 men and a mortality of over 70,000, outnumbering lung and colorectal cancer. Research shows that half of all men in Europe have a microscopic cancer at the age of 55 increasing to 80% at the age of 80.

The last few years have seen the introduction of new MRI scans into prostate cancer diagnosis, using an imagining technique called multiparametric prostate Magnetic Resonance Imaging (mpMRI). MpMRI has been developed, tested, and refined by many radiologists around the world over the past few decades. However, acquiring good images is only half the battle in identifying prostate cancer. The draft global guidelines were first released online in December 2014 by the American College of Radiology (ACR), AdMeTech Foundation, and European Society of Urogenital Radiology based on their five-year joint project. The current version has been revised and updated for publication, making it the version which can be recommended to the clinical community.

In clinical trials, an early version of the Prostate Imaging and Reporting and Data System (PI-RADS) system has been shown to facilitate improvements in the diagnosis of intermediate- to high-grade cancers.  The second version, called PI-RADS version 2  updates, and simplifies the way that the mpMRI scans are acquired, interpreted, and reported, and it provides detailed instructions so that mpMRI can be standardized.

Lead authors on the document are Professor Jeffrey Weinreb (Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, USA) and Professor Jelle Barentsz (Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands),  

Current procedures for confirming prostate cancer use ultrasound-guided transrectal biopsy, where 10 to 12 prostate samples are taken via an ultrasound-guided needle, with the samples then being checked to see if they are cancerous. Often they are not, and are simply caused by a non-cancerous swelling of the prostate or the types of cancers that are very unlikely to result in harm to the patient.  Numerous studies have shown that mpMRI improves the recognition and exclusion of the most dangerous tumours so that fewer men may have to undergo a biopsy, and when they do have a biopsy it is more likely to identify clinically significant cancers.  In a further refinement, mpMRI allows MRI-targeted biopsies, which yield improved results compared with current ultrasound guided biopsy protocols.

Professor Barentsz commented:

“Early results have shown that mpMRI is an enormous help in detecting significant cancers. But to allow more wide-spread use, standardisation of image acquisition and interpretation is needed. The new PIRADS protocols have the potential to bring real benefits to many patients, throughout the world”.

Professor Barentsz continued:

“This work means we will see increasing use of good quality MRI scans in prostate diagnosis. These MRI-scanners are big expensive beasts, but in fact we have also found that, when you consider the savings made by reducing unnecessary treatment, that mpMRI is cost-effective.  We don’t suggest that mpMRI will completely replace the current ultrasound-biopsy method, but they are a powerful new diagnostic tool to the urologists in the diagnosis and treatment of prostate cancer. The next step is to take the system into the mainstream, which will mean an extensive training and educational programme”.

Commenting for the European Association of Urology, Adjunct Secretary General responsible for Education, Professor Hendrik Van Poppel (University of Leuven, Belgium) said:

“PSA screening decreases prostate cancer mortality but exposes to overdiagnosis and overtreatment. mpMRI will not only simplify this screening, it will also play an important role in the follow-up of patients under active surveillance. It should be the first exam a patient at risk of significant prostate cancer should have. As for the costs of mpMRI, these should be weighed against the saving of costs of unnecessary biopsies, coping with complications and possible unnecessary treatments”.

*The new standards are the culmination of a 5-year project by the European Society of Urogenital Radiology, American College of Radiology, and the AdMeTech Foundation.

ENDS

Notes for editors

Please mention European Urology in any story from this press release.

Contact details

Professor Jelle Barentsz                    Jelle.Barentsz@radboudumc.nl

Professor Hendrik Van Poppel         hendrik.vanpoppel@uzleuven.be

EAU Press Officer, Tom Parkhill        tom@parkhill.it  tel: +39 349 238 8191

**This article is in press in the journal European Urology

PI-RADS Prostate Imaging – Reporting and Data System: 2015, Version 2

Jeffrey C. Weinreb a,y,*, Jelle O. Barentsz b,y, Peter L. Choyke c, Francois Cornud d, Masoom A. Haider e, Katarzyna J. Macura f, Daniel Margolis g, Mitchell D. Schnall h, Faina Shtern i, Clare M. Tempany j, Harriet C. Thoeny k, Sadna Verma l a Yale School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA; b Radboudumc, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; c National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA; d Rene´ Descartes University, Paris, France; e University of Toronto, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Canada; f Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA; g University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA; h University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA; i AdMeTech Foundation, Boston, MA, USA; j Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA; k University Hospital of Bern, Bern, Switzerland; l University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA.

This article (doi:10.1016/j.eururo.2015.08.052) is freely available for a limited period at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0302283815008489

European Urology is the official journal of the European Association of Urology. With an impact factor of 13.938, European Urology is the top-ranked journal in Urology.

More than 12,000 visitors are expected to attend the 31st Annual EAU Congress (EAU16) in Munich 11-15 March 2016, http://uroweb.org/

For more information about American College of Radiology, visit www.acr.org.

For more information about the European Society of Urogenital Radiology, visit http://www.esur.org/

For more information about AdMeTech Foundation, visit www.admetech.org