Abstract
BackgroundDue to limited SNR the cerebral applications of the intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) concept have been sparse. MRI hardware developments have resulted in improved SNR and this may justify a reassessment of IVIM imaging for non-invasive quantification of the cerebral blood volume (CBV) as a first step toward determining the optimal field strength. PurposeTo investigate intravoxel incoherent motion imaging for its potential to assess cerebral blood volume (CBV) at three different MRI field strengths. Materials and methodsFour volunteers were scanned twice at 1.5T, 3T as well as 7T. By correcting for field-strength-dependent effects of relaxation, estimates of corrected CBV (cCBV) were obtained in deep gray matter (DGM), frontal gray matter (FGM) and frontal white matter (FWM), using Bayesian analysis. In addition, simulations were performed to facilitate the interpretation of experimental data. ResultsIn DGM, FGM and FWM we obtained cCBV estimates of 2.2ml/100ml, 2.7ml/100ml, 1.4ml/100ml at 1.5T; 3.7ml/100ml, 5.0ml/100ml, 3.2ml/100ml at 3T and 15.5ml/100ml, 20.3ml/100ml, 7.0ml/100ml at 7T. ConclusionQuantitative cCBV values obtained at 1.5T and 3T corresponded better to physiological reference values, while 7T showed the largest deviation from expected values. Simulations of synthetic tissue voxels indicated that the discrepancy at 7T can partly be explained by SNR issues. Results were generally more repeatable at 7T (intraclass correlation coefficient, ICC=0.84) than at 1.5T (ICC=0.68) and 3T (ICC=0.46).
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