BME Immersion, Week 4

This week has been more focused in research since Dr. Hu has been away for a conference for the past days. I have been working with his research time on different projects. There are about eight projects being developed in the lab but there is one specific for my work here and one that is the main focus of the research team. The research team as a whole is working on a project to compare outcomes for PIRADS 1.0 and PIRADS 2. 0.

PIRADS stands for “prostate imaging reporting and data system” and it reports what can be seen in prostate -specific magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan and how to interpret these data. It is utilized to detect specific areas in the prostate that can have malignancy on it and must be removed. PIRADS 1.0 has been the most used platform for prostatectomy in years and its outcome is highly documented and proved to be very positive. However, there is a second platform, PIRADS 2.0, which is an improved version of PIRADS 1.0. This new platform is currently used in robotic prostatectomy. However, its outcomes haven’t been documented yet. Therefore, Dr. Hu’s research team is currently working on surveillance of patients that have gone through robotic prostatectomy. Their main goal is to document the changes and improvements that patients experience after prostate removal using PIRADS 2.0. Then, they will document the major outcomes of the new platform and compared to the old platform, PIRADS 1.0.

Having contact with the patients during clinical days has helped me a lot to understand the life improvements that this kind of procedures can give to a patient. It is amazing to get to know the patients and their experiences besides just analyzing their data.