Effects of Temporal Resolution on Blood-Brain Barrier Permeability Measurement with Dynamic Contrast Enhanced MRI in Multiple Sclerosis Enhancing Lesions

Ileana Ozana Jelescu¹, Ilana Ruth Leppert¹, Sridar Narayanan¹, Douglas L. Arnold¹, G Bruce Pike¹

Accurate and reproducible measurements of blood-brain barrier permeability in MS enhancing lesions would benefit follow-ups of lesion activity and comparison of detection sensitivity between different Gd-enhanced protocols. We propose a Dynamic Contrast Enhanced MRI protocol that allows sampling of the arterial input function with high temporal resolution in the first minute post-injection, followed by a lower temporal resolution but high spatial resolution acquisition of enhancement in lesions. This dual temporal resolution method was tested experimentally and through simulations and, compared to previous methods, has proven to yield more accurate and precise estimates over a wide range of permeability values.