An Improved Reference Tissue Approach for Measuring the Arterial Input Function in DCEMRI; Comparison of Late-Phase Reference Tissue and Plasma Contrast Media Concentrations.

Xiaobing Fan¹, Chad R. Haney¹, Devkumar Mustafi², Marta Zamora¹, Erica J. Markiewicz¹, Gregory S. Karczmar¹

Accurate measurement of the arterial input function (AIF) is critical for quantitative evaluation of DCEMRI data. The reference tissue method avoids large errors associated with direct arterial measurements, but assumes that Ktrans and ve for the reference tissue are close to literature values. Here we demonstrate that this problem can be avoided by comparing a reference tissue that has low blood flow to plasma concentrations measured at one minute or greater after injection when plasma concentration can be measured accurately. These values (Ktrans/ve) are then used to calculate the entire AIF including the first pass of the contrast bolus.