Xia Li1, E. Brian Welch2, A.
Bapsi Chakravarthy3, Lei Xu4, Mary Loveless5,
Ingrid Mayer6, Mark Kelley7, Ingrid Meszoely8,
Julie Means-Powell7, John C. Gore9, Thomas E. Yankeelov1
1Radiology and Radiological Sciences,
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States; 2Philips
Healthcare, Nashville, TN, United States; 3Radiation Oncology,
Vanderbilt University; 4Biostatistics, Vanderbilt University; 5Biomedical
Engineering, Vanderbilt University; 6Medical Oncology, Vanderbilt
University; 7Surgical Oncology, Vanderbilt University; 8Radiology,
Vanderbilt University; 9Radiology and Radiological Sciences ,
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States
The
accurate determination of the arterial input function, or AIF, plays an
important role to quantitative analysis of dynamic contrast enhanced MRI
(DCE-MRI) data. We have proposed (in a separate abstract) a simple and
efficient method to obtain the AIF, through tracking an initial seed point
placed within the axillary artery. Using this method, we obtain the AIF for
each individual patient (AIFind) and the population averaged AIF (AIFpop). We
apply the AIFs to two DCE-MRI pharmacokinetic models to compare the
physiological parameters.