Neil Peter Jerome1, Matthew R Orton1, Thorsten Feiweier2, Dow-Mu Koh3, Martin O Leach1, and David J Collins1
1CRUK Cancer Imaging Centre, Division of Radiotherapy & Imaging, Institute of Cancer Research, London, United Kingdom, 2Siemens Healthcare GmbH, Erlangen, Germany, 3Department of Radiology, Royal Marsden Hospital, London, United Kingdom
The
biexponential IVIM model of diffusion does not account for distinct T2 values
for the two components, commonly interpreted as blood and tissue, leading to a TE dependence of the pseudo-diffusion
volume fraction parameter f. In this volunteer study, the addition of a small
number of DWI scans at different TEs allows for fitting of an extended T2-IVIM
model, returning TE-independent estimations of liver f (18.26±7.3 % compared to 27.88±6.0 % from conventional IVIM fitting), and T2s of 77.6 ± 30.2 and 42.1 ± 6.8
ms for pseudo- and true diffusion compartments, respectively.
