Development of a Dedicated Prostate Phantom for Technical Evaluation of Diffusion-weighted MR Imaging Sequences

Abstract

This study aimed to demonstrate the technical feasibility of a dedicated prostate phantom for standardized qualitative evaluation of diffusion-weighted MRI sequences, focusing on signal-to-noise characteristics and image artifacts. A custom-designed phantom simulating prostate tissue, tumor lesions, and rectal gas was used to evaluate 6 diffusion-weighted imaging techniques at 1.5 and 3.0 tesla. Quantitative assessments included signal-to-noise measurements and susceptibility artifacts, while spatial distortion was evaluated by comparison with T2-weighted imaging. Qualitative image quality was assessed using corresponding clinical images as references. Clinical images were evaluated by a radiologist and a urologist, and phantom images were evaluated by 2 radiological technologists. The phantom demonstrated high inter-reader agreement for qualitative image assessment. Clinical image evaluation was performed to confirm whether artifact trends observed in the phantom were similarly observed in clinical images and showed comparable tendencies across sequences. These findings indicate that the proposed prostate phantom provides a practical and reproducible platform for qualitative evaluation.