Anders Garpebring1, Nils stlund2, Mikael Karlsson1
1Radiation Sciences, Ume University, Ume, Sweden; 2Biomedical Engineering and Informatics, Ume University Hospital, Ume, Sweden
The magnitude signal in T1-weighted DCE-MRI only has high sensitivity to a limited range of contrast agent concentrations, which makes simultaneous measurement of contrast agent concentration in tissue and the arterial input function (AIF) difficult. The aim of this study was to determine if the phase information from a sequence optimized for the contrast levels in a tumor can be used for measurement of the AIF. A flow-phantom was used to investigate accuracy, precision and linearity of concentrations derived from phase data. The results showed that the phase is well suited for the determination of the AIF.