Progressive Change in Biomechanical Properties of Ex Vivo Prostate with Pathology Fixation as Measured by MR Elastography at 7 Tesla, & Correlation with Changes in T1, T2 & ADC

Deirdre Maria McGrath¹, Warren D. Foltz¹, Kristy K. Brock^1,2

Validation of medical imaging for disease detection and localization is achieved by correlation with the gold-standard of histopathology. For accurate 3D biomechanical registration of the histopathology volume with the imaging volume, the effect of pathology fixation on biomechanical ex vivo tissue properties must be incorporated. A quasi-static MRE method at 7 tesla was applied to measure the progressive effects of formalin fixation in preclinical and clinical prostate tissue, and increases in Youngs modulus with fixation were correlated with decreases in T₁, T₂ and ADC. This will allow the formulation of predictive models of material property changes using standard MRI parameters.