According to medical database statistics, prostate cancer is the second most common type of cancer diagnosed in men. Prostate cancer was expected to be diagnosed in around 268,490 males in the United States in 2022, accounting for roughly 34,500 fatalities.

PSA (prostate-specific antigen) screening is commonly used to determine whether a patient has prostate cancer. The widespread use of this test has decreased cancer-related mortality in men. This comes with greater discovery and treatment of numerous tumors with limited spreading potential (i.e., clinically insignificant lesions).

The presence of clinically significant lesions, the extent of disease diagnosis and determination of risk of future progression should always be prioritized with accurate assessment. This helps prevent unnecessary over or under-treatment that often contributes to treatment failures.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) provides a more accurate vision of potentially serious prostate malignancies, making it useful for suitable patients who have opted for a biopsy and facilitating direct targeting of lesions during a biopsy. MRI may also be used to gauge tumor stage and assess therapy response.

MRI can also prove to be useful for the evaluation of males with established diagnosis of prostate cancer. The benefits include optimizing tumor localization for staging and risk stratification, selecting appropriate candidates with low-risk disease for active surveillance, monitoring during active surveillance and detecting local failure after radiation therapy.

Staging — Prostate MRI can help with staging by confirming organ-confined status (and thus supporting the decision to perform nerve-sparing radical prostatectomy), assessing the status of the pelvic lymph nodes and determining the location and local extent of the tumor in patients who are candidates for radiation therapy.