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Abstract #3331

On the limitations of brain lesion characterization by direct assessment of MRI phase

Paul Polak 1 , Robert Zivadinov 1,2 , and Ferdinand Schweser 1,2

1 Department of Neurology, Buffalo Neuroimaging Analysis Center, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, United States, 2 Molecular and Translational Imaging Center, MRI Center, Clincal and Translational Research Center, Buffalo, NY, United States

Differentiation of hemorrhagic and calcified brain lesions is an important clinical neuroimaging task. The gold-standard technique uses computed tomography, although the use of susceptibility weighted phase images has been the subject of intense research. On the basis that hemorrhages are paramagnetic, and calcifications diamagnetic, the phase of the lesion can be used as the criterion for differentiation. In numerical simulations of an elliptical lesion we demonstrated that the internal phase also depends on the lesions orientation in the magnetic field, and thus phase is an unreliable standard for lesion discrimination. Quantitative susceptibility maps derived from the phase images correctly recovered the underlying susceptibility regardless of positioning, and thus are a better differentiator of lesion subtypes.

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