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Interactive dedicated training curriculum improves accuracy in the interpretation of MR imaging of prostate cancer

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Abstract

Objective

To assess the effect of interactive dedicated training on radiology fellows’ accuracy in assessing prostate cancer on MRI.

Methods

Eleven radiology fellows, blinded to clinical and pathological data, independently interpreted preoperative prostate MRI studies, scoring the likelihood of tumour in the peripheral and transition zones and extracapsular extension. Each fellow interpreted 15 studies before dedicated training (to supply baseline interpretation accuracy) and 200 studies (10/week) after attending didactic lectures. Expert radiologists led weekly interactive tutorials comparing fellows’ interpretations to pathological tumour maps. To assess interpretation accuracy, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was conducted, using pathological findings as the reference standard.

Results

In identifying peripheral zone tumour, fellows’ average area under the ROC curve (AUC) increased from 0.52 to 0.66 (after didactic lectures; p < 0.0001) and remained at 0.66 (end of training; p < 0.0001); in the transition zone, their average AUC increased from 0.49 to 0.64 (after didactic lectures; p = 0.01) and to 0.68 (end of training; p = 0.001). In detecting extracapsular extension, their average AUC increased from 0.50 to 0.67 (after didactic lectures; p = 0.003) and to 0.81 (end of training; p < 0.0001).

Conclusion

Interactive dedicated training significantly improved accuracy in tumour localization and especially in detecting extracapsular extension on prostate MRI.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by NIH Grant # R01 CA76423. The authors thank the readers who participated in this study, Richard Batz, Sandra Brennan, Sean Curran, Devish Dixit, Jonathan Landa, Anthony Miller, Christopher Riedl, Simran Sandhu, Claire Smith, Tade Tadic and Mohammed Talukder; Halley F. Eisenberg for data collection; Samson W. Fine for providing pathology tumour maps; and Ada Muellner for manuscript editing.

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Correspondence to Hedvig Hricak.

Additional information

Oguz Akin and Christopher C. Riedl are joint first authors.

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Akin, O., Riedl, C.C., Ishill, N.M. et al. Interactive dedicated training curriculum improves accuracy in the interpretation of MR imaging of prostate cancer. Eur Radiol 20, 995–1002 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-009-1625-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-009-1625-x

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