A Comparison between Arterial Input Function Approaches for High Temporal Resolution Pharmacokinetic Analysis of Prostate Cancer at 3.0T

Fiona M. Fennessy¹, Sandeep N. Gupta², Andriy Fedorov¹, Robert Mulkern¹, Yi Tang¹, Felipe Franco¹, Kemal Tuncali¹, Ehud Schmidt¹, Clare Tempany¹

Pharmacokinetic (PK) analysis allows for quantification of DCE MRI data in prostate cancer. The objective of this work is to determine the variability in PK analysis using model based Arterial Input Function (m-AIF) and accurate individualized AIF (i-AIF) from the femoral artery by comparing their performance in areas suspicious for prostate cancer on endorectal prostate MR at 3.0T. Mean prostate Ktrans values obtained were significantly different using m-AIF and i-AIF. mAIF results in less variable PK analysis results. Further studies are required to determine if mAIF will allow for more robust comparisons in longitudinal studies, or whether mAIF is in fact under-representing underlying areas of tumor