Masoom Haider, MD

Masoom Haider, MD, Professor of Medical Imaging at the University of Toronto, discusses the clinical utility of multiparametric MRI (mpMRI) in prostate cancer diagnosis, noting current knowledge and practice gaps and highlighting key areas for future research. He explains that while the benefits of mpMRI in biopsy-naïve men at high risk of prostate cancer have been confirmed several times over and it is increasingly recommended prior to biopsy, mpMRI can still miss between 3 and 11% of clinically significant cancers, so some kind of follow-up strategy or safety net is needed. Dr. Haider then discusses the need for a quality assurance system, like PI-QUAL, to ensure that mpMRIs are correctly performed and interpreted, as well as the need for a directed pathway to create a better flow of patients from initial assessment through to follow-up. He also briefly summarizes research on the comparative risks of lesions visible on mpMRI to lesions invisible on mpMRI, reducing mpMRI through better risk stratification, and comparing cancer detection with mpMRI to cancer detection with 68Ga-PSMA PET/CT. He concludes that a great deal remains to be learned both about the long term implications of using mpMRI and about the best ways to use it.