Computer-aided diagnosis of prostate cancer on diffusion weighted imaging: A technical review

Abstract

Worldwide, prostate cancer is one of the most diagnosed cancer of males. However, developing efficient diagnostic techniques for prostate cancer is very essential and has a great clinical impact. These techniques can enhance the benefits from treatment and improve the chance of patients' survival. Although, Transrectal Ultrasound (TRUS) guided biopsy is still the standard approach for prostate cancer diagnosing, it is not preferred due to its invasiveness. Therefore, there is a necessity to explore non-invasive methods that can detect the prostate cancer early. Several magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), e.g., T2 MRI, dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE)MRI, and diffusion weighted imaging (DWI), have been vastly utilized for prostate cancer detection. The main goal of this paper is to provide an overview of latest non-invasive Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems for diagnosing prostate cancer using DWI, highlighting their implementation, experiments, and reported results. Moreover, the paper outlines the challenges of present diagnostic systems, and presents the current trends in solving these challenges.