A. Some hip replacements may cause a problem for an MRI of the prostate, particularly if they are bilateral and have large metal components. Other times they may cause artifact but do not affect scan quality for detecting prostate cancer. We usually cannot predict with certainty in advance which prostheses will be a problem since it also relates to the patient’s anatomy. The
same prosthesis for one patient may be fine and for another may significantly limit the scan. For this reason, we will at least attempt to do the scan with patient’s that have a hip prosthesis and we’ll know after initial imaging whether the scan will be successful or not. I can say that we are able to obtain a good quality, diagnostic scan in the majority of patients that have hip
prostheses. Given the type of prosthesis you described, I would guess that your scan should be successful since it has a relatively small metallic component.