Prostate and prostatic carcinoma: comparison of gadolinium-enhanced MR images and histopathologic findings

The purpose of this study was to determine the patterns of enhancement in normal prostate, and to compare them with the enhancement patterns and histopathologic findings in patients with prostatic carcinoma. Seventeen patients who had no urogenital disease and 27 who underwent radical prostatectomy or prostatic biopsy were included in this study. All patients were evaluated with T1-, T2-weighted and gadolinium-enhanced T1-weighted images. With gadolinium enhancement the inner gland showed more enhancement than the peripheral zone in the normal prostate. The carcinoma tissue was enhanced more than the peripheral zone in 13 patients, about the same as the peripheral zone in 11 patients, and less than the peripheral zone in three patients. The three patients whose cancer tissue demonstrated no enhancement had poorly differentiated adenocarcinoma of the solid type. In conclusion, gadolinium-enhanced T1-weighted imaging is not reliable for routine use in MR imaging of the prostate, but may be useful to evaluate histologic types in patients with prostatic carcinoma.