In-vivo Reproducibility of Quantitative Diffusion MRI in the Prostate using Reduced Field-of-View and Multi-shot Acquisitions

Novel diffusion weighted MRI pulse sequences based on reduced FOV (rFOV) and multi-shot echo-planar imaging (msEPI), respectively, have been proposed to reduce distortions present in standard single-shot EPI. In this study, the quantitative reproducibility of prostate diffusion measurements with rFOV and msEPI is investigated with healthy volunteers. Diffusion parameters were estimated from different sequences (ssEPI, rFOV, msEPI), b-value groups, and diffusion models (mono-exponential, stretched exponential and kurtosis). Measurements from rFOV and msEPI are in good agreement with the standard ssEPI, demonstrating reproducibility across pulse sequences.