Usually, visual registration of a mp-MRI target leads to the detection of a corresponding TRUS target.
Several techniques are available for guiding TB to the suspicious mp-MRI targets, but the simplest, cheapest, and easiest to learn is "cognitive," with visual registration of MRI and TRUS data.
Following visual registration, one of the operators sequentially performed two targeted MRI-US fusion guided biopsies per MRI-identified lesion and 12-core US sextant biopsies.
The substantial spatial differences by the both experienced and inexperienced operators were observed, suggesting an inherent limitation of visual registration that cannot be overcome by experience.
The higher spatial distance to a targeted lesion in the base (14.9 ± 7.1 mm) than in the apex (9.4 ± 5.2 mm) as well as in the central gland (13.4 ± 7.3 mm) than in the peripheral zone (9.2 ± 4.6 mm) of the prostate suggests that the performance of visual registration is dependent upon the location of suspicious lesions.
The registration can be performed either by a human operator (visual registration) or by fusion software.
Visual registration requires a good knowledge of prostate zonal anatomy, and either the ability to review MRI data just before the biopsy session, or a detailed transmission of mp-MRI targets location, or best, of both.
The purpose of our study was to assess the capability of visual registration in localizing suspicious lesions between operators with differing levels of experience (<1 and 18 years).
For some cases, the spatial distance may not have a direct bearing on cancer detection since biopsy results are also dependent on the size of the lesion, the needle trajectory, and the plane of the spatial disparity of visual registration.
Such anatomic landmarks, in the absence of gland deformation, could improve the reliability of visual registration.
