Harmonization of AI/DL accelerated quantitative bi-parametric prostate MRI: demonstration in multi-parametric phantom and patients

Motivation: Clinical implementations of AI/DL-aided acquisitions for bi-parametric prostate MRI (bpMRI) require harmonization across vendor platforms. Goal(s): An AI/DL-accelerated six-minute bpMRI was implemented on two 3T clinical scanners by two vendors along-side the standard-of-care (SOC) clinical protocols. Approach: Quantitative harmonization was performed using a recently developed multi-parametric phantom with calibrated T2 and diffusion kurtosis values mimicking prostate tissue ranges. Experienced radiologists assessed image quality of AI/DL versus SOC bpMRI for prostate cancer lesions on a 3-point Likert-like scale. Results: The developed protocol enables harmonization of AI/DL-accelerated six-minute quantitative mapping of T2 and ADC for prostate patients with clinically acceptable diagnostic quality. Impact: AI/DL-accelerated acquisition implemented on two clinical 3T MRI vendor systems allows six-minute quantitative bpMRI for prostate patients. The developed QA workflow enables harmonization of quantitative T2 and ADC mapping in multi-vendor clinical settings.