Anne-Catherine Fruytier1, Julie Magat1,
Benedicte F. Jordan1, Gregory Cron2, Bernard Gallez1
1Louvain Drug Research
Institute, Biomedical Magnetic Resonance Research Group, University of
Louvain, Brussels, Belgium; 2Ottawa Health Research Institute,
Ottawa, Canada
DCE-MRI allows a non invasive assessment of the tumor hemodynamics. For the determination of quantitative parameters through pharmacokinetic modelling, the arterial input function (AIF) should be measured accurately. We observed that, at 11.7 Tesla, T2* relaxation has a major effect on arterial signal, causing magnitude imaging to fail to provide a proper measurement of the AIF. We therefore focused our work on characterization of the AIF using phase imaging. To validate our phase technique, we conducted an in vitro study with a phantom consisting of tubing mimicking the iliac artery of the mice (where the AIF is measured in vivo). We measured the phase shift (∆) as a function of different concentrations of Gd-DOTA
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