Combined 18F-Fluciclovine PET/MRI Shows Potential for Detection and Characterization of High-Risk Prostate Cancer

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate whether quantitative imaging features derived from combined ¹⁸F-fluciclovine PET/multiparametric MRI show potential for detection and characterization of primary prostate cancer. Methods: Twenty-eight patients diagnosed with high-risk prostate cancer underwent simultaneous ¹⁸F-fluciclovine PET/MRI before radical prostatectomy. Volumes of interest (VOIs) for prostate tumors, benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) nodules, prostatitis, and healthy tissue were delineated on T2-weighted images, using histology as a reference. Tumor VOIs were marked as high-grade (≥Gleason grade group 3) or not. MRI and PET features were extracted on the voxel and VOI levels. Partial least-squared discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) with double leave-one-patient-out cross-validation was performed to distinguish tumors from benign tissue (BPH, prostatitis, or healthy tissue) and high-grade tumors from other tissue (low-grade tumors or benign tissue). The performance levels of PET, MRI, and combined PET/MRI features were compared using the area under the receiver-operating-characteristic curve (AUC). Results: Voxel and VOI features were extracted from 40 tumor VOIs (26 high-grade), 36 BPH VOIs, 6 prostatitis VOIs, and 37 healthy-tissue VOIs. PET/MRI performed better than MRI and PET alone for distinguishing tumors from benign tissue (AUCs of 87%, 81%, and 83%, respectively, at the voxel level and 96%, 93%, and 93%, respectively, at the VOI level) and high-grade tumors from other tissue (AUCs of 85%, 79%, and 81%, respectively, at the voxel level and 93%, 93%, and 91%, respectively, at the VOI level). T2-weighted MRI, diffusion-weighted MRI, and PET features were the most important for classification. Conclusion: Combined ¹⁸F-fluciclovine PET/multiparametric MRI shows potential for improving detection and characterization of high-risk prostate cancer, in comparison to MRI and PET alone.

Keywords: FACBC; PET/MRI; PLS-DA; fluciclovine; prostate cancer.