08 Jun 20. Featured Paper

Link to paper on Journal of Imaging

Authors

Jose Bernal, María Valdés-Hernández, Javier Escudero, Eleni Sakka, Paul A. Armitage, Stephen Makin, Rhian M. Touyz, & Joanna M. Wardlaw

Abstract

Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) can be used to examine the distribution of an intravenous contrast agent within the brain.

Computational methods have been devised to analyse the contrast uptake/washout over time as reflections of cerebrovascular dysfunction.

However, there have been few direct comparisons of their relative strengths & weaknesses.

In this paper, we compare five semiquantitative methods comprising the slope & area under the enhancement-time curve, the slope & area under the concentration-time curve ( SlopeCon & AUCCon ), & changes in the power spectrum over time.

We studied them in cerebrospinal fluid, normal tissues, stroke lesions, & white matter hyperintensities (WMH) using DCE-MRI scans from a cohort of patients with small vessel disease (SVD) who presented mild stroke.

The total SVD score was associated with AUCCon in WMH ( p<0.05 ), but not with the other four methods.

In WMH, we found higher AUCCon was associated with younger age ( p<0.001 ) & fewer WMH ( p<0.001 ), whereas SlopeCon increased with younger age ( p>0.05 ) & WMH burden ( p>0.05 ).

Our results show the potential of different measures extracted from concentration-time curves extracted from the same DCE examination to demonstrate cerebrovascular dysfunction better than those extracted from enhancement-time curves. 

Keywords

• Cerebrovascular alteration descriptors
• Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging
• Small vessel disease