Interactive dedicated training curriculum  improves accuracy in the interpretation of MR  imaging of prostate cancer.
OBJECTIVE
To assess the effect of interactive dedicated training on radiology fellows' accuracy in assessing prostate cancer on MRI.


METHODS
Eleven radiology fellows, blinded to clinical and pathological data, independently interpreted preoperative prostate MRI studies, scoring the likelihood of tumour in the peripheral and transition zones and extracapsular extension. Each fellow interpreted 15 studies before dedicated training (to supply baseline interpretation accuracy) and 200 studies (10/week) after attending didactic lectures. Expert radiologists led weekly interactive tutorials comparing fellows' interpretations to pathological tumour maps. To assess interpretation accuracy, receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis was conducted, using pathological findings as the reference standard.


RESULTS
In identifying peripheral zone tumour, fellows' average area under the ROC curve (AUC) increased from 0.52 to 0.66 (after didactic lectures; p<0.0001) and remained at 0.66 (end of training; p<0.0001); in the transition zone, their average AUC increased from 0.49 to 0.64 (after didactic lectures; p=0.01) and to 0.68 (end of training; p=0.001). In detecting extracapsular extension, their average AUC increased from 0.50 to 0.67 (after didactic lectures; p=0.003) and to 0.81 (end of training; p<0.0001).


CONCLUSIONS
Interactive dedicated training significantly improved accuracy in tumour localization and especially in detecting extracapsular extension on prostate MRI.
Akin
Oguz
O
Department of Radiology, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY 10065, USA.
Riedl
Christopher C
CC
Ishill
Nicole M
NM
Moskowitz
Chaya S
CS
Zhang
Jingbo
J
Hricak
Hedvig
H
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency / Q000379:methods*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009518:New York; D015588:Observer Variation; D011361:Professional Competence; D011471:Prostatic Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011871:Radiology / Q000193:education*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity