Incorporating a vascular term into a reference region model for the analysis of DCE-MRI data: a simulation study

摘要

A vascular term was incorporated into a reference region (RR) model analysis of DCE-MRI data, and its effect on the accuracy of the model in estimating tissue kinetic parameters in a tissue of interest (TOI) was systematically investigated through computer simulations. Errors in the TOI volume transfer constant (Ktrans,TOI) and TOI extravascular extracellular volume (ve,TOI) that result when the fractional plasma volume (vp) was included in (1) neither region, (2) TOI only (3) both regions were investigated. For nominal values of tumor kinetic parameters (ve,TOI = 0.40 and Ktrans,TOI = 0.25 min-1), if the vascular term was included in neither region or the TOI only, Ktrans,TOI error was within 20% for 0.03 < vp,TOI < 0.10, and ve,TOI error was within 20% for the range of vp,TOI studied (0.01–0.10). The effects of temporal resolution were shown to be complex, and in some cases errors increased with increasing temporal resolution.