Ingrid Digernes, Line B Nilsen, Endre Grøvik, Atle Bjørnerud, Grethe Løvland, Einar Vik-Mo, Torstein R Meling, Cathrine Saxhaug, Åslaug Helland, Kari D Jacobsen, Oliver Geier, Kyrre E Emblem
Dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) imaging is a widely used technique for assessment of cerebral blood volume (CBV). With combined gradient-echo and spin-echo DSC techniques, measures of the underlying vessel size and vessel architecture can be obtained from the vessel size index (VSI) and vortex area, respectively. However, how noise, and specifically the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), affect the estimations of these parameters has largely been overlooked. In order to address this issue, we have performed simulations to generate DSC signals with varying levels of CNR, defined by the peak of relaxation rate curve divided by the standard deviation of the baseline...
November 17, 2020: Physics in Medicine and Biology