Quantitative MRI perfusion using arterial spin labeling and intravoxel incoherent motion: potential applications in monitoring infectious disease

Wednesday, October 26, 2011 — Poster Session III
10:00 a.m. – Noon	Natcher Conference Center	NIAID	IMAG-12

Authors

• D Hammoud
• D Thomasson
• J Hufton
• J Lawler

Abstract

Many infectious diseases produce an inflammatory response that has been shown to alter tissue perfusion. Arterial spin labeling (ASL) and intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) are two magnetic resonance perfusion techniques that are used in the assessment of brain and liver focal lesions, therefore we propose they may be extended to systemic diseases. In this work, we optimized these two techniques in thigh muscle to characterize sensitivity for change in perfusion. A body phased array on a 3T MRI system was used to produce axial scans through the mid thigh. ASL delay times were set to cover the expected range of blood perfusion and extended from 300 msec to 2.0 sec. Six different B-values were set from 50 to 1200 mm2/sec for IVIM perfusion fraction. Our first results show that in muscle tissue there is very good signal to noise ratio (SNR) for the IVIM perfusion fraction but the EPI based technique suffers from susceptibility artifacts. Perfusion in muscle is significantly higher than brain which necessitates a significant reduction in the delay times to obtain good SNR for ASL. In conclusion, these techniques may be used to monitor change in tissue perfusion if there is sufficient inflammatory response in infectious disease.

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