Visualizing the urethra by magnetic resonance imaging without usage of a catheter for radiotherapy of prostate cancer
Takaaki Yoshimura, Kentaro Nishioka, Takayuki Hashimoto, Taro Fujiwara, Kinya Ishizaka, Hiroyuki Sugimori, S Kogame, Kazuya Seki, Hiroshi Tamura, Sodai Tanaka, Yuto Matsuo, Yasuhiro Dekura, Fumi Kato, Hidefumi Aoyama, Shinichi Shimizu
Abstract
The urethra position may shift due to the presence/absence of the catheter. Our proposed post-urinationmagnetic resonance imaging (PU-MRI) technique is possible to identify the urethra without catheter. We aimed to verify the inter-operator difference in contouring the urethra by PU-MRI. The mean values of the evaluation indices of dice similarity coefficient, mean slice-wise Hausdorff distance, and center coordinates were 0.93, 0.17 mm, and 0.36 mm for computed tomography, and 0.75, 0.44 mm, and 1.00 mm for PU-MRI. Therefore, PU-MRI might be useful for identifying the prostatic urinary tract without using a urethral catheter.