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Abstract #4056

Spatially Constrained Model of Body Diffusion-Weighted MRI Signal Decay Increases Precision of Parameter Estimates

Moti Freiman1, Jeannette M. Perez-Rossello1, Michael J. Callahan1, Robert V. Mulkern1, Stephan D. Voss1, Simon K. Warfield1

1Radiology, Harvard Medical School/Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States


The role of incoherent motion parameters as quantitative imaging biomarkers for various clinical applications is becoming increasingly important. However, the IVIM model of DW-MRI signal decay does not count for inter-voxel incoherent motion. Thus, incoherent motion parameter estimates are not reliable or specific enough. In this work, we improved the precision of incoherent motion measurements from DW-MRI data significantly by introducing a spatially constrained model of DW-MRI signal decay (IM). We demonstrated the improvement achieved by using our IM model using in-vivo abdominal DW-MRI data of 30 patients. The spatially constrained IM model provides more precise insight to the physiological causes of the DW-MRI signal decay than the IVIM model.

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