Ultrasound Shear Wave Elastography of the Normal Prostate: Interobserver Reproducibility and Comparison with Functional Magnetic Resonance Tissue Characteristics

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to establish interobserver reproducibility of Young’s modulus (YM) derived from ultrasound shear wave elastography (US-SWE) in the normal prostate and correlate it with multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (mpMRI) tissue characteristics. Twenty men being screened for prostate cancer underwent same-day US-SWE (10 done by two blinded, newly-trained observers) and mpMRI followed by 12-core biopsy. Bland–Altman plots established limits of agreement for YM. Quantitative data from the peripheral zone (PZ) and the transitional zone (TZ) for YM, apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC, mm²/s from diffusion-weighted MRI), and K^trans (volume transfer coefficient, min⁻¹), V_e (extravascular-extracellular space, %), K_ep (rate constant, /min), and initial area under the gadolinium concentration curve (IAUGC60, mmol/L/s) from dynamic contrast–enhanced MRI were obtained for slice-matched prostate sextants. Interobserver intraclass correlation coefficients were fair to good for individual regions (PZ = 0.57, TZ = 0.65) and for whole gland 0.67, (increasing to 0.81 when corrected for systematic observer bias). In the PZ, there were weak negative correlations between YM and ADC (p = 0.008), and Ve (p = 0.01) and a weak positive correlation with K_ep (p = 0.003). No significant intermodality correlations were seen in the TZ. Transrectal prostate US-SWE done without controlling manually applied probe pressure has fair/good interobserver reproducibility in inexperienced observers with potential to improve this to excellent by standardization of probe contact pressure. Within the PZ, increase in tissue stiffness is associated with reduced extracellular water (decreased ADC) and space (reduced V_e).