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Abstract #2029

Influence of the Non-Linear Fitting Approach on Intravoxel Incoherent Motion (IVIM) MRI: A Model Selection Study

Moritz Schneider1, Michael Ingrisch1, Matthias Moser2, Heidrun Hirner, Clemens Cyran, Konstantin Nikolaou, Maximilian Reiser, Olaf Dietrich1

1Josef Lissner Laboratory for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Clinical Radiology, LMU Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany; 2Department of Clinical Radiology , LMU Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany


Intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) MRI is performed by fitting a biexponential model function to the measured diffusion-weighted signal attenuation. While the conventional biexponential model has 4 free parameters including the initial signal at b-value 0, several studies use only the signal attenuation relative to this initial value, discriminating, thus, artificially the measurement at b=0 and at higher b-values. In this study, the Akaike Information Criterion is used to determine whether the 3- or 4-parameter model is more appropriate for typical IVIM data. The comparison results in a very strong preference of the 3-parameter approach (relative attenuation).