Image quality metrics (IQMs) such as root mean square error (RMSE) and structural similarity index (SSIM) are commonly used in the evaluation and optimization of accelerated magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) acquisition and reconstruction strategies. However, it is unknown how well these indices relate to a radiologist’s perception of diagnostic image quality. In this study, we compare the image quality scores of five radiologists with the RMSE, SSIM, and other potentially useful IQMs: peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) multi-scale SSIM (MSSSIM), information-weighted SSIM (IWSSIM), gradient magnitude similarity deviation (GMSD), feature similarity index (FSIM), high dynamic range visible difference predictor (HDRVDP), noise quality metric (NQM), and visual information fidelity (VIF). The comparison uses a database of MR images of the brain and abdomen that have been retrospectively degraded by noise, blurring, undersampling, motion, and wavelet compression for a total of 414 degraded images. A total of 1017 subjective scores were assigned by five radiologists. IQM performance was measured via the Spearman rank order correlation coefficient (SROCC) and statistically significant differences in the residuals of the IQM scores and radiologists’ scores were tested. When considering SROCC calculated from combining scores from all radiologists across all image types, RMSE and SSIM had lower SROCC than six of the other IQMs included in the study (VIF, FSIM, NQM, GMSD, IWSSIM, and HDRVDP). In no case did SSIM have a higher SROCC or significantly smaller residuals than RMSE. These results should be considered when choosing an IQM in future imaging studies.

The use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) during pregnancy is associated with concerns among patients and health professionals with regards to fetal safety. In this work, the Canadian Association of Radiologists (CAR) Working Group on MRI in Pregnancy presents recommendations for the use of MRI in pregnancy, derived from literature review as well as expert panel opinions and discussions. The working group, which consists of academic subspecialty radiologists and obstetrician-gynaecologists, aimed to provide updated, evidence-based recommendations addressing safety domains related to energy deposition, acoustic noise, and gadolinium-based contrast agent use based on magnetic field strength (1.5T and 3T) and trimester scanned, in addition to the effects of sedative use and occupational exposure.

The management of prostate cancer (PCa) is dependent on biomarkers of biological aggression. This includes an invasive biopsy to facilitate a histopathological assessment of the tumor’s grade. This review explores the technical processes of applying magnetic resonance imaging based radiomic models to the evaluation of PCa. By exploring how a deep radiomics approach further optimizes the prediction of a PCa’s grade group, it will be clear how this integration of artificial intelligence mitigates existing major technological challenges faced by a traditional radiomic model: image acquisition, small data sets, image processing, labeling/segmentation, informative features, predicting molecular features and incorporating predictive models. Other potential impacts of artificial intelligence on the personalized treatment of PCa will also be discussed. The role of deep radiomics analysis-a deep texture analysis, which extracts features from convolutional neural networks layers, will be highlighted. Existing clinical work and upcoming clinical trials will be reviewed, directing investigators to pertinent future directions in the field. For future progress to result in clinical translation, the field will likely require multi-institutional collaboration in producing prospectively populated and expertly labeled imaging libraries.