Abstract #1691

Improved Accuracy and Precision in Estimation of Intracellular Water Liftime

Jin Zhang¹, Melanie Freed², Joe Rodriguez³, Daniel H. Turnbull³,⁴, Sungheon Kim¹

¹Radiology, Center for Biomedical Imaging, New York University School of Medicine, New York, United States; ²Radiology, Center for Biomedical Imaging, New York University School of Medicine, New York, United States; ³Kimmel Center for Biology and Medicine at the Skirball Institute of Biomolecular Medicine, New York University School of Medicine, New York, United States; ⁴Radiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, United States

Intracellular water lifetime can be a useful non-invasive biomarker to probe the viability of cell membrane. However, accurate measurement of intracellular water lifetime remains challenging. In this study, we proposed to use multiple flip angles for DCE-MRI data acquisition in order to improve both accuracy and precision of the estimation. The proposed method was investigated using a numerical simulation study as well as a preclinical study with mouse tumor models. Our preliminary results support that the proposed method can substantially reduce the uncertainty in the measurement of intracellular water lifetime.