Abstract #3915

Reliable Estimation of Capillary Transit Time Distributions at Voxel-Level using DSC-MRI

Kim Mouridsen¹, Leif stergaard¹, Sren Christensen², Sune Nrhj Jespersen¹

¹Center for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark; ²Department of Neurology, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia

DSC-MRI has proven very useful for characterizing tissue perfusion indices such as CBF, CBV and MTT. However, whereas CBF and MTT only represent average capillary flow and transit time, important physiological parameters such as flow heterogeneity and oxygen extraction capacity depend on the shape characteristics of the complete distribution of transit times. We demonstrate in a simulation study, that by using a Bayesian estimation approach and a parameterization of the residue function based on a vascular model, shape characteristics of the residue function can be reliably estimated for a range of microvascular flow patterns.