Abstract #0814

Variation in GFR Estimates Derived from DCE-MRI Renography Studies in the Presence of Reduced Signal to Noise Ratio

Saeed Kiani¹, Isky Gordon², Iosif Mendichovszky³, Marica Cutajar², Kevin Wells¹

¹CVSSP, Faculty of Engineering & Physical Sciences, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom; ²UCL Institute of Child Health, London, United Kingdom; ³Wolfson Molecular Imaging Centre, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

Robustness of DCE-MRI renography in the presence of diminished renal function needs to be addressed. Renal impairment may result in uptake reduction of the contrast agent (Gd-DTPA) and subsequently signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) reduction in the DCE-MR image data. This work aims to evaluate the robustness of DCE-MRI renography in the presence of synthetic SNR variation on the renal data. The synthetic SNR variation is achieved by degrading the data in both spatial and temporal domains. The results demonstrated substantial variations (i.e. >10%) in estimated kidney filtration rates (GFR) for a slight variation of SNR, about 0.05-0.1, from the original data.