DWI Contrast Between Healthy and Malignant Tissue Using OGSE's

Blake Walters¹, Jae Kim¹

We use a Monte Carlo simulation of diffusion in a tissue model to analyze healthy/malignant contrast in DWI with oscillating gradient spin echo (OGSE) sequences. Results show that using OGSE's contrast due to the increased nucleus-to-cell volume ratio (NCR) in malignant tissue amounts to up to ~30% of total contrast at high (>= 40 G/cm) gradient strengths. Total contrast is maximized at an optimum OGSE frequency. At high frequencies (>1kHz) contrast is due only to changes in tissue cellularity. The qualitative behaviour of contrast with OGSE frequency can be predicted using a single calculated effective diffusion coefficient.