A qualitative and quantitative analysis of changes in prostate MRI T2WI signals with different abstinence durations

PURPOSE To investigate the effect of abstinence duration on image quality of prostate with high-field magnetic resonance imaging(MRI); MATERIALS AND METHODS This study included males who underwent prostate MRI in Xi’an No.3 Hospital from November 2021 to November 2022.And these males were divided into two groups according to whether they had ejaculation before MRI examination within 3 days. Two radiologists blinded evaluated the boundary sharpness of the peripheral zone (PZ) and central gland (CG) of prostate using a three-point Likert-scale. The region of interests (ROIs) of the PZ and CG at both sides on the sagittal T2W image were drawn and the signal intensity (SI) of ROIs was measured, then the SI ratio (SIR) was calculated. The Wilcoxon’s test and the independent-samples T test was utilized to compare the differences of the two groups; RESULTS A total of fifty young males were included in the study. There were twenty males abstinence more than 3-days, and thirty males were abstinence within 3-days. The qualitative analysis showed that the different structure of prostate in abstinence group was easier to identify than in ejaculation group(P≤0.05). The quantitative analysis showed that the SIR of PZ and CG in the ejaculation group were lower than in the abstinence group (all P ≤0.05), and the peripheral zone was significantly lower; CONCLUSION In order to make the results more accurate, we suggested that the abstinence should more than 3 days prior to the examination.