Deterministic Arterial Input Function selection in DCE-MRI for automation of quantitative perfusion calculation of colorectal cancer

04.11.2020

Tönnes, C., Janssen, S., Golla, A., Uhrig, T., Chung, K., Schad, L. R., & Zöllner, F. G. (2021)

Magnetic Resonance Imaging, 75, 116-123. doi:10.1016/j.mri.2020.09.009

Abstract

Development of a deterministic algorithm for automated detection of the Arterial Input Function (AIF) in DCE-MRI of colorectal cancer. Using a filter pipeline to determine the AIF region of interest. Comparison to algorithms from literature with mean squared error and quantitative perfusion parameter K^trans. The AIF found by our algorithm has a lower mean squared error (0.0022 ± 0.0021) in reference to the manual annotation than comparable algorithms. The error of K^trans (21.52 ± 17.2%) is lower than that of other algorithms. Our algorithm generates reproducible results and thus supports a robust and comparable perfusion analysis.

Keywords: Arterial input function; Colorectal cancer; Dynamic contrast enhanced MRI; Quantitative perfusion; Segmentation.