In pharmacokinetic analysis of DCE-MRI data, the choice of initial parameter values for fitting has been reported to have a significant impact on the outcome of the optimization and hence, on parameter estimates. In this study, we investigated the influence of initial values by fitting simulated concentration time curves with varying combinations of initial parameters, using the two compartment exchange model. The resulting parameter estimates were visualized and compared to the true values, used for simulation, by means of relative errors. Results showed that the choice of initial values has little influence on the precision of the pharmacokinetic analysis.
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