Enhanced T2-weighted images using Luminal Water Imaging and U-Net based segmentation for prostate cancer diagnosis.

Abstract

Clinical prostate carcinoma (PCa) detection with MRI has focused on qualitative assessment. However, novel Luminal Water Imaging (LWI) provides quantitative information with promising results for detecting PCa. To overcome shortcomings of clinical prostate MRI protocol, we propose using LWI to augment T2-weighted (T2W) images to improve image contrast for PCa detection while maintaining anatomical details needed for radiological diagnosis. Here, we investigate automatic segmentation models and various weighting functions of LWI parameter maps to generate semi-quantitative T2W images that also preserves anatomical detail. Our results show that a combined T2W and LWI parameter image provides enhanced detection of PCa.