Improvements in Diagnostic Accuracy with Quantitative Dynamic Contrast- Enhanced MRI

摘要

Scanning of patients with a research acquisition protocol and calibration phantoms has continued. We identified the major sources of variability and error in our quantitative analysis. B1, or transmit field, inhomogeneity is a large source of error in the estimation of concentration of contrast media. To account for this we have developed a method using fat as a reference signal to correct for spatial variations in the B1 field. Further analysis of patients scanned repeatedly at 1.5T and 3T had identified that parameters related to the shape of the signal enhancement versus time curves during DCEMRI of lesions show relatively low variability. Analysis of all the cases acquired to date with the refined methods is underway.