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Sagittal Anatomy

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0:01

Okay, let's take a look at some prostate anatomy.

0:04

In the sagittal projection, in the midline,

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the patient is lying on their back.

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So this is going to be anterior,

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this is going to be posterior.

0:13

And you've got the base, the middle of the

0:16

gland, or mid-gland, and apex of the gland.

0:20

You can see this curious angle from

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anterior proximal to posterior distal of the

0:26

urethra, and then it goes straight on down.

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Here's the central urethra

0:29

and the periurethral tissue.

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And then we've got the fibromuscular

0:33

zone, which is pretty thin.

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In the midline.

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This is a midline diagram.

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So we're going to help you through the

0:40

transition of anatomy off to the side when we

0:43

look at a live MRI where the anatomy changes

0:46

a little bit and the peripheral zone becomes

0:48

more prominent but stay tuned for that.

0:51

Around the urethra you mostly have the TZ or

0:54

transitional zone portion of the central gland

0:57

depicted here in yellow and it's probably a

1:00

little bit of TZ Uh, behind the urethra as well.

1:04

So let's put a little yellow over here too.

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So some more TZ.

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And then in orange we have the CZ.

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So together these make up the, the central gland.

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Now as you get older, unfortunately, the

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central gland, and especially the central

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zone, gets bigger and bigger and bigger

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and starts to encroach on the urethra.

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So you can have trouble urinating.

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And also we have structures

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that we haven't drawn in yet.

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Like this one in purple, the seminal vesicle.

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So it'll start to press

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against the seminal vesicle.

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And then anteriorly we've also got the bladder.

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We have the bladder right here.

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towards the base of the bladder.

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And it'll lift the bladder

1:52

up and indent the bladder.

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And sometimes when you have really profound

1:56

BPH, it'll get kind of fluffy and lobulated and

2:00

it'll start to look a little bit like broccoli.

2:03

Now let's take this anatomy and let's

2:07

rotate it into the projection that

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you're going to look at with MRI.

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Now for those of you MR aficionados,

2:15

which hopefully all of you are, let's

2:17

look at the sagittal projection in the

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way that you would view it as an imager.

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So this would be anterior,

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this would be posterior.

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Here's your bladder.

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And we've got the urethra coming down

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from the bladder right here, making

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that angle that we talked about.

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And around the urethra, in the midline,

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is gonna be the transitional zone, or TZ.

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Gonna have a TZA and a TZP.

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And then we've got the central

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zone, which is posterior superior.

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And it's this one.

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Along with some TZ hypertrophy, they

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can get really, really big and start

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to press on the base of the bladder.

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And sometimes it'll even be kind of

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fluffy, a little bit like broccoli, and

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may even encroach upon the seminal vesicle.

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And of course, encroach upon the urethra,

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along with the TZ, which gets bigger

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and causes difficulty in urination.

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In the midline anteriorly, we've

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got the fibromuscular tissue.

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Which on T2 is going to be dark.

3:14

We're not going to show that just yet.

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And then in the back we're

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going to have the, the PZ.

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Now as we go off to the side, the PZ

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is going to wrap around everything.

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So PZ tissue, as you go more lateral, is going

3:29

to take over from the fibromuscular zone.

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And is going to be the predominant

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zone in the periphery, in the

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most lateral cuts on either side.

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You're going to appreciate that on MRI.

3:40

So, so have no fear.

3:41

Now Basic, basic, body coil,

3:45

sagittal, T1 weighted image.

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Um, I've got the stubby little

3:49

seminal vesicle right here.

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Just to orient you, here's the spine in the back.

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Here's the bladder in the front.

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Here's the pubis in the front.

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Here's the pre-prostatic space of Retzius.

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Here is the, the rectum.

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And between the rectum is kind of a

4:04

slit-like area, the Denonvillier fascia.

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The rectoprostatic space.

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But I'm actually showing it for the PZ.

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Because this patient had a biopsy.

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So the biopsy has produced blood.

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And the blood is isolated to the PZ.

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How cool is that?

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So there you see your PZ kind of hooking around.

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Going very deep and apically.

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And cancers occur there.

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When you biopsy the prostate, because the

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cancers are very dense and firm, the blood

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tends not to extrude into the cancer.

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That's known as the prostate exclusion sign.

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So you've got blood infiltrating all around

4:49

the PZ, except in two separate cancers.

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So this patient has cancer, but I'm

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showing it for the shape of the PZ,

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and then you see the rest of the gland.

5:01

Which is relatively faceless on a

5:03

T1 weighted image, which includes the

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fibromuscular zone or anterior stroma,

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the TZ, and the CZ posterosuperiorly.

5:12

Let's move on, shall we?

Report

Faculty

Stephen J Pomeranz, MD

Chief Medical Officer, ProScan Imaging. Founder, MRI Online

ProScan Imaging

Tags

Prostate/seminal vesicles

Neoplastic

MRI

Genitourinary (GU)

Body

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