Drs. Maheen Rajput and Catherine Metz were part of a Prostate Biopsy Team that also included Drs. Chad Tracy and Paul Gelhaus from the Department of Urology, who received the 2018 UIP Innovations in Clinical Care Award for their work in bringing the first MR/US fusion biopsy machine in the State of Iowa for prostate biopsies. Since 2017, they've performed over 200 biopsies on patients from Iowa and surrounding states. Fusing MR images with real-time ultrasound allows for better identifying higher-grade prostate cancers and better targeting of lesions for biopsy. This helps us to make better decisions about who should undergo a biopsy, resulting in fewer uneeded biopsies.
In addition to Drs. Rajput and Metz, other members of Radiology assisted in bringing this together, including Dr. Alan Stolpen, who helped to develop the protocol, Travis Witham and the MR technologists who accommodated new protocols and increased exam loads, and Rany Ferguson and Steve Vulgamott who worked to get the hard/software in place for imaging.