Improvement of reproducibility in quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) and transverse relaxation rates ( ) after physiological noise correction.

Abstract

Numerous studies have suggested that quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) and transverse relaxation rates ( ) are useful to monitor neurological diseases. For clinical use of QSM and , reproducibility is an important feature. However, respiration-induced local magnetic field variation makes artifacts in gradient echo-based images and reduces the reproducibility of QSM and . To investigate the improvement of reproducibility of QSM and after the correction of respiration-induced field variation, and to assess the effect of varying types of the region of interest (ROI) analysis on reproducibility. Reproducibility study. Ten controls. 3T/multiecho gradient echo sequence. Intrascan reproducibility of QSM and was investigated in ROIs before and after the respiration correction. Reproducibility was obtained by the square of voxel-wise correlation coefficients between scans. A paired t-test was performed for comparison between before and after the respiration correction and between QSM and . Based on the ROI analysis, reproducibility increased after the respiration correction. Reproducibility in the white matter (11.89% increased in QSM and 23.38% in , P = 0.009 and 0.024, respectively) and deep gray matter (5.50% increased in QSM and 13.96% in , P = 0.024 and 0.019, respectively) increased significantly after the respiration correction. Reproducibility of was higher than that of QSM in the whole brain and cortical gray matter, while QSM maps showed higher reproducibility than in the white matter and deep gray matter. Respiration-induced error correction significantly improved reproducibility in QSM and mapping. QSM and mapping showed a different level of reproducibility depending on the types of ROI analysis. 4 Technical Efficacy: Stage 1 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2018.