Cheng-Ping Chien1, Feng Mao Chiu2, and Queenie Chan3
1Institute of Biomedical Electronics and Bioinformatics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, 2Philips Healthcare, Taipei, Taiwan, 3Philips Healthcare, Hong Kong, China, People's Republic of
Synopsis
Intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM)
model is useful tool to observe the microcirculatory perfusion, but its
stability still needs to be improved. We propose the envelope bounding
technique to reduce the fluctuated signal at low b-value, and use this new
signal profile to fit IVIM model. This improvement gives a more stable outcome
with fast diffusion (D*) and perfusion fraction (PF).Purpose
Intravoxel incoherent
motion (IVIM) model has been used to study in body imaging for years
1,2,3,
and this model separates true diffusion (D), fast diffusion (D*), and perfusion
fraction (PF) from multiple b-value diffusion weighted image (DWI), and D* and
PF reflect the microcirculatory perfusion. Due to the instability of D* and
perfusion fraction, a segmented manner of processing multiple b-value was employed
in the past reports
2,3 to implement it, but the stability is still needed
to be improved further. Based on IVIM, this study is aimed to use an envelope
bounding technique to reduce the severe signal fluctuation at low b-value area
and to compare the results with segmented approach.
Material & method
One healthy human subject was scanned in Philips Ingenia
3.0 T MRI (Philips Healthcare, Eindhoven, The Netherlands) with dual-source RF
transmit system for B1 calibration and 32 channel torso coil. Multiple b-value
DWI was acquired with a navigator for respiratory compensation, and
parameters were [TR=1500 ms/TE=43 ms/b-value=0,5,10,20,50,80,100,200,400,800],
and it was scanned 6 times for stability analysis.
The envelope bounding
technique produces both upper and lower bound of the original signal, and a new
signal profile is decided with [(upper bound+lower bound)/2] (Fig.1). Then this
new signal profile was fitted by IVIM model, and it yields D, D* and PF, and
also the original signal was fitted for comparison. Standard deviation maps
were calculated from repeated scans, and three ROIs were selected for analysis
(Fig.2). All the data was processed and analyzed with home-made script on
MATLAB 2015a (The Mathworks, Natick, MA) platform.
Result
The signal curves shows that a less steep D* fitting
and slightly lower PF with envelope bounding (Fig.1). The variation of envelope bounding is lower
than the segmented one in D* standard deviation maps (Fig.2), and it is slightly lower in PF standard
deviation maps (Fig.3).
The improved variation decline of D* and PF of three selected ROIs is
calculated in the table, and it shows an overall drop of standard deviation
(Table 1& 2). The decline of D* standard deviation are 38.9%, 25.6% and
34.1% respectively in ROI 1, ROI2 and ROI 3, and the decline of PF standard
deviation are 0.4%, 18.6% and 14.1% respectively in ROI 1, ROI2 and ROI 3.
Discussion
Results show that a reduction of
variation both in D* and PF maps. The envelope bounding technique reduces the
fluctuation at signals below b-value 100 (Fig.1), and it yields a more reliable
fitting result of D*. Because of less steep signal profile at low b-value
bounded by envelope, overall D* are lower than the segmented method. The
stability of D* during repeated scans is elevated with envelope bounding due to
the drop of standard deviation. There is a slight change of PF, because it is
mainly derived from signals above b-value 200, and the envelope technique has a
less effect in this range. The envelope bounding gives a good way to prevent
the iteration of parameters jumping into wrong traps of local-minimum.
Conclusion
The envelope bounding
technique provides a stable result of D* through bounding fluctuated signals
with envelopes. This technique will be tested more tasks for a precise
validation, and it will be applied to hepatic disorders in the future.
Acknowledgements
No acknowledgement found.References
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