Abstract #4159

The Influence of Perfusion Regime and T2 Relaxation on IVIM Imaging Parameter Estimation

Sonia Isabel Goncalves¹,², Filipe Caseiro Alves¹,², Miguel Castelo Branco¹,³

¹Medical Faculty, University Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; ²Radiology, University Hospital Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; ³Biomedical Institute for Research in Light and Image, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

Intra-voxel incoherent motion (IVIM) imaging differentiates between true molecular diffusion or slow diffusion (D), diffusion due to perfusion or fast diffusion (D*), and quantifies perfusion fraction (f). IVIM imaging has been applied to characterize and stage, in a non-invasive way, several pathological changes of the liver. Recently, methods have been proposed to optimize b-value distribution so that the errors associated with D, D* and f are minimized. In this paper, we hypothesize that different perfusion regimes will have different error behavior associated with D, D* and f and that T2 relaxation effects will have an impact on the error behavior of the optimal b-value distribution.