Development of a Phantom for Quality Assurance in Multi-Centre Clinical Trials with Diffusion-Weighted MRI

Naomi H. M. Douglas¹, Jessica M. Winfield¹, Nandita M. deSouza¹, David John Collins¹, Matthew R. Orton¹

A phantom suitable for quality assurance in multi-centre clinical trials has been designed and built. Phantom development involved testing of: temperature stability; relaxivity dependence on concentrations of sucrose and manganese chloride; ADC dependence on concentrations of sucrose and manganese chloride. Sodium azide was added to each of the solutions as a bactericidal agent. The final phantom is of a modular design containing samples with physiologically relevant values of ADC, T1 and T2. This test object is being used to aid the validation of ADC as a biomarker for treatment response of tumours in multi-centre clinical trials.