Steven Sourbron1, Wieland Sommer2,
Christoph J. Zech2, Maximilian F. Reiser2, Karin A.
Herrmann2
1Division of Medical
Physics, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom; 2Department
of Clinical Radiology, University of Munich, Munich, Germany
The choice of arterial and venous delay times in DCE-MRI of the liver has a strong effect on the measured parameters. In this study a number of alternative methods are applied to patient data and compared. Results show that an arterial delay time is necessary to obtain a good fit to the data, but including an additional venous delay causes unstable and overestimated perfusion values. It is concluded that DCE-MRI data in the liver are best analysed by fitting an arterial delay, and assuming that the venous delay is zero.