26 February 2021 Automated workflow for volumetric assessment of signal intensity ratio on T1-weighted MR images after multiple gadolinium administrations
Chia-Ying Liu, Marc Ramos, David Moreno-Dominguez, Vesna Prckovska, Paulo Rodrigues, Markus Blank, Franklin G. Moser, Jacob Agris
Author Affiliations +
Abstract

Purpose: Repeated injections of linear gadolinium-based contrast agent (GBCA) have shown correlations with increased signal intensities (SI) on unenhanced T1-weighted (T1w) images. Assessment is usually performed manually on a single slice and the SI as an average of a freehand region-of-interest is reported. We aim to develop a fully automated software that segments and computes SI ratio of dentate nucleus (DN) to pons (DN/P) and globus pallidus (GP) to thalamus (GP/T) for the assessment of gadolinium presence in the brain after a serial GBCA administrations.

Approach: All patients (N  =  113) underwent at least eight GBCA enhanced scans. The modal SI in the DN, GP, pons, and thalamus were measured volumetrically on unenhanced T1w images and corrected based on the reference protocol (measurement 1) and compared to the SI-uncorrected-modal-volume (measurement 2), SI-corrected-mean-volume (measurement 3), as well as SI-corrected-modal-single slice (measurement 4) approaches.

Results: Automatic processing worked on all 2119 studies (1150 at 1.5 T and 969 at 3 T). DN/P were 1.085  ±  0.048 (1.5 T) and 0.979  ±  0.061 (3 T). GP/T were 1.084  ±  0.039 (1.5 T) and 1.069  ±  0.042 (3 T). Modal DN/P ratios from volumetric assessment at 1.5 T failed to show a statistical difference with or without SI corrections (p  =  0.71). All other t-tests demonstrated significant differences (measurement 2, 3, 4 compared to 1, p  <  0.001).

Conclusion: The fully automatic method is an effective powerful tool to streamline the analysis of SI ratios in the deep brain tissues. Divergent SI ratios using different approaches reinforces the need to standardize the measurement for the research in this field.

© 2021 Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) 2329-4302/2021/$28.00 © 2021 SPIE
Chia-Ying Liu, Marc Ramos, David Moreno-Dominguez, Vesna Prckovska, Paulo Rodrigues, Markus Blank, Franklin G. Moser, and Jacob Agris "Automated workflow for volumetric assessment of signal intensity ratio on T1-weighted MR images after multiple gadolinium administrations," Journal of Medical Imaging 8(1), 014005 (26 February 2021). https://doi.org/10.1117/1.JMI.8.1.014005
Received: 23 March 2020; Accepted: 5 February 2021; Published: 26 February 2021
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KEYWORDS
Brain

Image segmentation

Thalamus

Gadolinium

Magnetic resonance imaging

Tissues

Neuroimaging

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