ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: To determine the diagnostic accuracy of magnetic resonance spectroscopy in the detection of prostatic carcinoma. METHODS: This descriptive, cross-sectional study was conducted at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, Karachi, from July 24, 2014, to January 23, 2015, and comprised patients who had been screened for prostate cancer. Using non-probability purposive sampling, all magnetic resonance spectroscopy scans were interpreted by three radiologists. Male patients aged 45-70 years, diagnosed with suspicious heterogeneous mass in peripheral zone on ultrasound and who had prostatic specific antigen levels value >4.0 ng/ml were included. Three dimensional magnetic resonance spectroscopy imaging data was acquired. Data was analysed using SPSS 21. Diagnostic accuracy of the procedure was determined by taking histopathology as the gold standard. RESULTS: There were 224 patients with an overall mean age of 55.63±6.34 years (range: 45-70 years). The strong perfect correlation of 0.82 was found by Kappa statistics between magnetic resonance spectroscopy and histopathology results and a good diagnostic accuracy (92.8%) of magnetic resonance spectroscopy testing was observed for the detection of prostate carcinoma. Pooled sensitivity was 92.2% and specificity was 94.6% for the diagnosis of prostate carcinoma. CONCLUSIONS: A strong correlation was found between magnetic resonance spectroscopy and histopathology results to detect prostate carcinoma.
