A team led by Flemming Forsberg, PhD, of Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia evaluated the two techniques, using histopathology as the reference standard. The study included 55 men who underwent 12-core prostate biopsy. The men were imaged with a transrectal ultrasound transducer using conventional ultrasound and subharmonic imaging.
The group ranked the imaging modes on a five-point scale at each biopsy location, tracking measures such as peak intensity, time to peak, and estimated perfusion; these measures were then compared with biopsy results.
Prostate cancer was present in 55 of 660 cores from 24 of the 55 patients. Two subharmonic imaging parameters -- estimated perfusion and peak intensity -- showed a significant difference between benign and malignant biopsy cores that conventional ultrasound did not. This led the researchers to conclude that "subharmonic imaging appears to improve the diagnosis of prostate cancer relative to conventional transrectal ultrasound."
This paper received a Roadie 2018 award for the most popular abstract by page views in this Road to RSNA section.
