The arterial signal in DCE MRI often suffers from the inflow effect, which may cause large errors in the arterial concentration and compartmental model analysis. We implemented a constrained signal-to-concentration conversion using the subject’s cardiac output based on the Stewart-Hamilton principle, which limits the area under the arterial first pass peak. The constrained conversion significantly reduced the variation of the arterial concentration sampled at three levels along the abdominal aorta. The constrained arterial input function resulted in a significantly lower variability of the Tofts model Ktrans in psoas muscle compared to the uncorrected input function.
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