Optimization of Scan Parameters for Diffusion Kurtosis Imaging at 1.5 T

Suguru Yokosawa¹, ², Yoshitaka Bito, Yoshihisa Soutome, Kenji Ito², Fumio Yamashita², Kohsuke Kudo², Makoto Sasaki²

We investigated the effects of the b-values, number of diffusion directions, and number of signals averaged (NSA) on the accuracy of diffusion kurtosis imaging (DKI) and attempted to determine the ideal combinations of these parameters to achieve both accuracy and time efficiency at 1.5 T. We demonstrated that a b-value of 2500 s/mm2 and the NSA can improve the accuracies of DKI maps and that varying the numbers of b-values and diffusion directions was not effective for this purpose. Accurate DKI maps can be obtained with an acceptable acquisition time even at 1.5 T when the scan parameters are optimized.