AI-Based Isotherm Prediction for Focal Cryoablation of Prostate Cancer

Focal therapies have emerged as minimally invasive alternatives for patients with localized low-risk prostate cancer (PCa) and those with postradiation recurrence. Among the available focal treatment methods for PCa, cryoablation offers several technical advantages, including the visibility of the boundaries of frozen tissue on the intraprocedural images, access to anterior lesions, and the proven ability to treat postradiation recurrence. However, predicting the final volume of the frozen tissue is challenging as it depends on several patient-specific factors, such as proximity to heat sources and thermal properties of the prostatic tissue.This paper presents a convolutional neural network model based on 3D-Unet to predict the frozen isotherm boundaries (iceball) resultant from a given a cryo-needle placement. Intraprocedural magnetic resonance images acquired during 38 cases of focal cryoablation of PCa were retrospectively used to train and validate the model. The model accuracy was assessed and compared against a vendor-provided geometrical model, which is used as a guideline in routine procedures.The mean Dice Similarity Coefficient using the proposed model was 0.79±0.08 (mean+SD) vs 0.72±0.06 using the geometrical model (P<.001).The model provided an accurate iceball boundary prediction in less than 0.4second and has proven its feasibility to be implemented in an intraprocedural planning algorithm.