Diffusion-weighted MRI (Diffusion-weight + mri)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Diffusion-weighted MRI for monitoring tumor response to photodynamic therapy

JOURNAL OF MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING, Issue 2 2010
Hesheng Wang MS
Abstract Purpose: To examine diffusion-weighted MRI (DW-MRI) for assessing the early tumor response to photodynamic therapy (PDT). Materials and Methods: Subcutaneous tumor xenografts of human prostate cancer cells (CWR22) were initiated in athymic nude mice. A second-generation photosensitizer, Pc 4, was delivered to each animal by a tail vein injection 48 h before laser illumination. A dedicated high-field (9.4 Tesla) small animal MR scanner was used to acquire diffusion-weighted MR images pre-PDT and 24 h after the treatment. DW-MRI and apparent diffusion coefficients (ADC) were analyzed for 24 treated and 5 control mice with photosensitizer only or laser light only. Tumor size, prostate specific antigen (PSA) level, and tumor histology were obtained at different time points to examine the treatment effect. Results: Treated mice showed significant tumor size shrinkage and decrease of PSA level within 7 days after the treatment. The average ADC of the 24 treated tumors increased 24 h after PDT (P < 0.001) comparing with pre-PDT. The average ADC was 0.511 ± 0.119 × 10,3 mm2/s pre-PDT and 0.754 ± 0.181 × 10,3 mm2/s 24 h after the PDT. There is no significant difference in ADC values pre-PDT and 24 h after PDT in the control tumors (P = 0.20). Conclusion: The change of tumor ADC values measured by DW-MRI may provide a noninvasive imaging marker for monitoring tumor response to Pc 4-PDT as early as 24 h. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2010;32:409,417. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Predicting and monitoring cancer treatment response with diffusion-weighted MRI

JOURNAL OF MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING, Issue 1 2010
Harriet C. Thoeny MD
Abstract An imaging biomarker that would provide for an early quantitative metric of clinical treatment response in cancer patients would provide for a paradigm shift in cancer care. Currently, nonimage based clinical outcome metrics include morphology, clinical, and laboratory parameters, however, these are obtained relatively late following treatment. Diffusion-weighted MRI (DW-MRI) holds promise for use as a cancer treatment response biomarker as it is sensitive to macromolecular and microstructural changes which can occur at the cellular level earlier than anatomical changes during therapy. Studies have shown that successful treatment of many tumor types can be detected using DW-MRI as an early increase in the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values. Additionally, low pretreatment ADC values of various tumors are often predictive of better outcome. These capabilities, once validated, could provide for an important opportunity to individualize therapy thereby minimizing unnecessary systemic toxicity associated with ineffective therapies with the additional advantage of improving overall patient health care and associated costs. In this report, we provide a brief technical overview of DW-MRI acquisition protocols, quantitative image analysis approaches and review studies which have implemented DW-MRI for the purpose of early prediction of cancer treatment response. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Optimal acquisition orders of diffusion-weighted MRI measurements

JOURNAL OF MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING, Issue 5 2007
Philip A. Cook PhD
Abstract Purpose To propose a new method to optimize the ordering of gradient directions in diffusion-weighted MRI so that partial scans have the best spherical coverage. Materials and Methods Diffusion-weighted MRI often uses a spherical sampling scheme, which acquires images sequentially with diffusion-weighting gradients in unique directions distributed isotropically on the hemisphere. If not all of the measurements can be completed, the quality of diffusion tensors fitted to the partial scan is sensitive to the order of the gradient directions in the scanner protocol. If the directions are in a random order, then a partial scan may cover some parts of the hemisphere densely but other parts sparsely and thus provide poor spherical coverage. We compare the results of ordering with previously published methods for optimizing the acquisition in simulation. Results Results show that all methods produce similar results and all improve the accuracy of the estimated diffusion tensors significantly over unordered acquisitions. Conclusion The new ordering method improves the spherical coverage of partial scans and has the advantage of maintaining the optimal coverage of the complete scan. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2007;25:1051,1058. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Diffusion-weighted MRI of cholesteatomas of the petrous bone

JOURNAL OF MAGNETIC RESONANCE IMAGING, Issue 6 2002
Clemens Fitzek MD
Abstract Purpose To investigate if primary cholesteatomas of the petrous bone show high signal in diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI). Materials and Methods In this blinded study, we compared 15 patients with clinically certain cases and later surgically proven cholesteatomas vs. 12 patients with clinically acute otitis of the middle ear and 20 volunteers without petrous bone disease. Two blinded readers without knowledge of the clinical data decided in consensus agreement whether there was a pathologic signal increase in the petrous bone in an anisotropic single-shot echo-planar imaging (EPI) DWI sequence, an artifact, or no signal increase. Results Thirteen of 15 patients with cholesteatomas showed bright signal in EPI DWI, whereas 10 of 12 patients with acute otitis media and all volunteers presented the usual low signal of petrous bone. Conclusion EPI DWI is a fast diagnostic method that may be an additional valuable tool in the workup of suspected cholesteatomas. The ability of this technique to differentiate between cholesteatomas and granulomas or chronic otitis is not yet available. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2002;15:636,641. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Bilateral Internal Carotid Artery Dissection Mimicking Inflammatory Demyelinating Disease

JOURNAL OF NEUROIMAGING, Issue 4 2003
C. Lie MD
ABSTRACT Background and Purpose. Internal carotid artery (ICA) dissection (ICAD) may be extremely difficult to diagnose only on the basis of historical information and clinical signs, and even standard brain imaging (computed tomography [CT], T2-weighted magnetic resonance imaging [MRI]) may not be sufficient to delineate the underlying pathology clearly, as shown in this case. Methods. The clinical presentation and parenchymal lesion pattern on CT were suggestive of inflammatory demyelinating disease, and additional multiparametric MRI was per-formed. Results. Diffusion-weighted MRI, magnetic resonance angiography, and perfusion-weighted MRI revealed acute ischemic lesions, bilateral ICA obstruction, and bilateral hypoperfusion in the middle cerebral artery territories. Bilateral ICAD was confirmed by Doppler and duplex ultrasound, and anticoagulation therapy was initiated. A follow-up examination showed recanalization of the obstructed ICAs and the normalization of cerebral perfusion. Conclusion. This case illustrates the importance of demonstrating the pathology and the value of multiparametric MRI techniques for the diagnosis and monitoring of ICAD and its hemodynamic consequences. [source]


A simple method for rectified noise floor suppression: Phase-corrected real data reconstruction with application to diffusion-weighted imaging

MAGNETIC RESONANCE IN MEDICINE, Issue 2 2010
Douglas E. Prah
Abstract Diffusion-weighted MRI is an intrinsically low signal-to-noise ratio application due to the application of diffusion-weighting gradients and the consequent longer echo times. The signal-to-noise ratio worsens with increasing image resolution and diffusion imaging methods that use multiple and higher b-values. At low signal-to-noise ratios, standard magnitude reconstructed diffusion-weighted images are confounded by the existence of a rectified noise floor, producing poor estimates of diffusion metrics. Herein, we present a simple method of rectified noise floor suppression that involves phase correction of the real data. This approach was evaluated for diffusion-weighted imaging data, obtained from ethanol and water phantoms and the brain of a healthy volunteer. The parameter fits from monoexponential, biexponential, and stretched-exponential diffusion models were computed using phase-corrected real data and magnitude data. The results demonstrate that this newly developed simple approach of using phase-corrected real images acts to reduce or even suppress the confounding effects of a rectified noise floor, thereby producing more accurate estimates of diffusion parameters. Magn Reson Med, 2010. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]