Myocardial Blood Flow Measurement using DCE-MRI: Comparison of Region-Of-Interest & Voxelwise Analysis

Steven Sourbron¹, William Morton¹, David L. Buckley¹, John P. Greenwood², Sven Plein²

Measurement of myocardial blood flow (MBF) with DCE-MRI is conventionally performed on a region-of-interest (ROI) basis. In principle a voxelwise analysis is more attractive, but the lower SNR of single-voxel curves may reduce the accuracy or precision. This study aimed to investigate in patient data (n=25) whether voxelwise MBF values are significantly different from an analysis on ROI basis. Results show that both are in very good agreement, with a systematic difference of 4%. Since a voxelwise analysis offers additional information on the heterogeneity of myocardial perfusion, these results provide a strong case for the voxelwise approach in clinical applications.