Conspicuity and muscle-invasiveness assessment for bladder cancer using VI-RADS: a multi-reader, contrast-free MRI study to determine optimal b-values for diffusion-weighted imaging.

"Declarations Conflict of interestDomenico Mastrodicasa had no activities related to the present article. Activities not related to the present article: shareholder of Segmed, Inc. and consultant for Segmed, Inc. All the other authors of this manuscript declare no relationships with any companies whose products or services may be related to the subject matter of the article. Andrea Delli Pizzi is a member of the Scientific Editorial Board of Insight Into Imaging. Ethical approvalAll procedures were performed in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee (Comitato di Etica per la Ricerca Biomedica delle province di Chieti e Pescara e dell’Università degli Studi “G.d’Annunzio” di Chieti e Pescara, no. 1767) and with the 1964 Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from each participant. GuarantorThe scientific guarantor of this publication is Andrea Delli Pizzi. Informed consentWritten informed consent was obtained from all subjects (patients) in this study. Statistics and biometryNo complex statistical methods were necessary for this paper. Study subjects or cohorts overlapThe study subjects have been previously reported in the studies: Marchioni, M. et al., Could Bladder Multiparametric MRI Be Introduced in Routine Clinical Practice? Role of the New VI-RADS Score: Results From a Prospective Study. Clin Genitourin Cancer, 2020. Delli Pizzi, A., Mastrodicasa, D., and Marchioni, M. et al. Bladder cancer: Do we need contrast injection for MRI assessment of muscle invasion? A prospective multi-reader VI-RADS approach. Eur Radiol 31, 3874–3883 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-020-07473-6 Conflict of interest Domenico Mastrodicasa had no activities related to the present article. Activities not related to the present article: shareholder of Segmed, Inc. and consultant for Segmed, Inc. All the other authors of this manuscript declare no relationships with any companies whose products or services may be related to the subject matter of the article. Andrea Delli Pizzi is a member of the Scientific Editorial Board of Insight Into Imaging."

"Funding Open access funding provided by D'Annunzio University of Chieti-Pescara within the CRUI-CARE Agreement. The authors state that this work has not received any funding."