RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Quantitative Blood Flow Measurements in Gliomas Using Arterial Spin-Labeling at 3T: Intermodality Agreement and Inter- and Intraobserver Reproducibility Study
JF American Journal of Neuroradiology
JO Am. J. Neuroradiol.
FD American Society of Neuroradiology
SP 2073
OP 2079
DO 10.3174/ajnr.A2725
VO 32
IS 11
A1 T. Hirai
A1 M. Kitajima
A1 H. Nakamura
A1 T. Okuda
A1 A. Sasao
A1 Y. Shigematsu
A1 D. Utsunomiya
A1 S. Oda
A1 H. Uetani
A1 M. Morioka
A1 Y. Yamashita
YR 2011
UL http://www.ajnr.org/content/32/11/2073.abstract
AB BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: QUASAR is a particular application of the ASL method and facilitates the user-independent quantification of brain perfusion. The purpose of this study was to assess the intermodality agreement of TBF measurements obtained with ASL and DSC MR imaging and the inter- and intraobserver reproducibility of glioma TBF measurements acquired by ASL at 3T. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two observers independently measured TBF in 24 patients with histologically proved glioma. ASL MR imaging with QUASAR and DSC MR imaging were performed on 3T scanners. The observers placed 5 regions of interest in the solid tumor on rCBF maps derived from ASL and DSC MR images and 1 region of interest in the contralateral brain and recorded the measured values. Maximum and average sTBF values were calculated. Intermodality and intra- and interobsever agreement were determined by using 95% Bland-Altman limits of agreement and ICCs. RESULTS: The intermodality agreement for maximum sTBF was good to excellent on DSC and ASL images; ICCs ranged from 0.718 to 0.884. The 95% limits of agreement ranged from 59.2% to 65.4% of the mean. ICCs for intra- and interobserver agreement for maximum sTBF ranged from 0.843 to 0.850 and from 0.626 to 0.665, respectively. The reproducibility of maximum sTBF measurements obtained by methods was similar. CONCLUSIONS: In the evaluation of sTBF in gliomas, ASL with QUASAR at 3T yielded measurements and reproducibility similar to those of DSC perfusion MR imaging. AIFarterial input functionASLarterial spin-labelingDSCdynamic susceptibility contrast-enhancedICCintraclass correlation coefficientQUASARquantitative STAR labeling of arterial regionsQUIPPSquantitative imaging of perfusion using a single subtractionrCBFrelative cerebral blood flowrCBVrelative cerebral blood volumesTBFstandardized TBFTBFtumor blood flow