• Jacob Sosna, Ivan Pedrosa, William C Dewolf, Houman Mahallati, Robert E Lenkinski, and Neil M Rofsky.
• Department of Radiology and Urology, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
• Acad Radiol. 2004 Aug 1; 11 (8): 857-62.

Rationale And ObjectivesTo qualitatively compare the image quality of torso phased-array 3-Tesla (3T) imaging of the prostate with that of endorectal 1.5-Tesla imaging.Materials And MethodsTwenty cases of torso phased-array prostate imaging performed at 3-Tesla with FSE T2 weighted images were evaluated by two readers independently for visualization of the posterior border (PB), seminal vesicles (SV), neurovascular bundles (NVB), and image quality rating (IQR). Studies were performed at large fields of view(FOV) (25 cm) (14 cases) (3TL) and smaller FOV (14 cm) (19 cases) (3TS). A comparison was made to 20 consecutive cases of 1.5-T endorectal evaluation performed during the same time period.Results. 3TL produced a significantly better image quality compared with the small FOV for PB (P = .0001), SV (P =.0001), and IQR (P = .0001). There was a marginally significant difference within the NVB category (P = .0535). 3TL produced an image of similar quality to image quality at 1.5 T for PB (P = .3893), SV (P = .8680), NB (P = .2684), and IQR (P = .8599).ConclusionProstate image quality at 3T with a torso phased-array coil can be comparable with that of endorectal 1.5-T imaging. These findings suggest that additional options are now available for magnetic resonance imaging of the prostate gland.

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