Marco Borri1, Maria Schmidt1, David Collins1, Matthew Orton1, James d'Arcy1, Ceri Powell2, Dow-Mu Koh1, 3, Angela Riddell3, Kate Newbold2, Martin O. Leach1
1CR-UK and EPSRC Cancer Imaging Centre, Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden Hospital, Sutton, Surrey, United Kingdom; 2Head & Neck Department, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust; 3Radiology Department, The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust
Reliability of functional parameters depends on accuracy of DCE modelling approaches, and the arterial input function is an important component of the perfusion model. In this work we compare two different approaches to measuring patient-specific AIF in the carotid artery: (i) using a pre-bolus (10% of the dose) prior to DCE acquisition and (ii) using a local enhancing vessel present in the DCE examination. Both approaches are compared in a cohort of patients with histologically proven head and neck carcinoma undergoing radical chemoradiotherapy and enrolled in a longitudinal study, and reproducibility and inter-patient variability are assessed.