ProstateAtlas SimDCE: A simulation tool for dynamic contrast enhanced imaging of prostate

T1-weighted Dynamic Contrast Enhanced (DCE) MR imaging is emerging as a method with the potential of predicting pharmacodynamic response of biomarkers for cancer. It is becoming an important tool for the detection, staging, and monitoring of highly vascularized tumors. Pixel-wise model-based methods are used for analysis purposes through the computation of quantitative parameters maps. These methods are multi-steps algorithms and their technical and clinical implementations remain difficult. In this study, we describe a dedicated simulation tool to create dynamic images of prostate. Ground truths of the pharmacokinetics parameters maps are well known allowing an effective platform for the validation.