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Abstract #0258

Effects of Gradient Nonlinearity, Its Correction Methods & Distortion on Diffusion Weighted Imaging

MAGNA25Ek T. Tan1, Luca Marinelli1, Zachary W. Slavens2, Christopher J. Hardy1, Kevin F. King2

1GE Global Research, Niskayuna, NY, United States; 2GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI, United States


The apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) obtained with diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) is a promising non-contrast cancer imaging bio-marker. Gradient nonlinearity (GN) results in spatially-varying ADC, an effect that is confounded by distortion related to the DWI acquisition. Evaluations were performed in two whole-body MRI systems at 1.5T in various anatomical regions. GN correction (GNC) used up to 13 orders of spherical harmonics, and was used with and without the full b-matrix in the diffusion-tensor computation. GNC resulted in a significant reduction in ADC error in both systems. Distortion effects resulted in a significant ADC difference between both systems.