Quantification of the absolute accuracy and precision of DCE-MRI measurements of the arterial input function

A novel anthropomorphic phantom test device was used to investigate the effects of temporal resolution (T_res), B₁⁺-field non-uniformities, and pharmacokinetic (PK) model fitting methods on the absolute accuracy and precision of DCE-MRI measurements of the arterial input function (AIF), and resulting PK parameter estimates. Optimizing the T_res was found to reduce the maximum errors in PK parameter estimation from ~47% to ~20%. By correcting for B₁⁺-field non-uniformities these errors were further reduced to ~7%. Using a linear rather than non-linear version of the standard Tofts model further increased the accuracy and precision of PK parameter estimations.