# High resolution volumetric MRI for prostate cancer active surveillance

> **NIH NIH R01** · CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER · 2021 · $380,240

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
The vast majority of men diagnosed with prostate cancer do not die of their disease and can choose to delay or
avoid surgical or radiation treatment by undergoing active surveillance. Unfortunately, men on active
surveillance remain at risk for progression of prostate cancer and even death from prostate cancer. Therefore,
men are carefully followed with transrectal prostate biopsies every 1-2 years. Unlike with tumors in other
organs, there is no imaging modality that can be used to accurately detect and monitor prostate tumors.
Furthermore, prostate biopsies are painful and associated with a significant risk of sepsis and hospitalization.
Therefore, the personal and public health burden of life-long active surveillance is significant. We introduce a
novel MRI sequence that improves image quality and resolution. Our preliminary data shows that in men on
active surveillance, standard MRI detects only 61% of biopsy-proven prostate tumors. However, our novel HR-
MRI detects nearly all (96%) biopsy-proven prostate tumors, which is iimpressive since men on active
surveillance tend to have small, low grade tumors. Our HR-MRI used to generate our preliminary data had a
5-fold improvement in resolution; however, the resolution can be improved up to 25-fold at a cost of increased
scan time. The first aim will be to further optimize our HR-MRI to improve resolution and image quality while
minimizing the scan time. The optimized HR-MRI will be used to detect changes in tumor size or grade in men
on active surveillance and consider the possibiity that tumor growth rate or other imaging characteristics
predict the risk of disease progression. A more accurate MRI modality for localizing and monitoring prostate
tumors will allow men on active surveillance to reduce the number of followup biopsies, identify tumors for
biopsies that can be used for molecular characterization, and localize tumors for focal ablative therapies. The
HR-MRI can be deployed on existing 1.5T and 3T MRI systems with a simple software installation and does
not require new hardware.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10137894
- **Project number:** 5R01CA217098-05
- **Recipient organization:** CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** HYUNG L KIM
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $380,240
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-05-01 → 2024-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10137894

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10137894, High resolution volumetric MRI for prostate cancer active surveillance (5R01CA217098-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10137894. Licensed CC0.

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