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Repeatability and reproducibility of longitudinal relaxation rate in 12 small-animal MRI systems

Waterton, John C. ; Hines, Catherine D.G. ; Hockings, Paul D. ; Laitinen, Iina ; Ziemian, Sabina ; Campbell, Simon ; Gottschalk, Michael LU orcid ; Green, Claudia ; Haase, Michael and Hassemer, Katja , et al. (2019) In Magnetic Resonance Imaging 59. p.121-129
Abstract


Background: Many translational MR biomarkers derive from measurements of the water proton longitudinal relaxation rate R
1
, but evidence for between-site reproducibility of R
1
in small-animal MRI is lacking. Objective: To assess R
1
repeatability and multi-site reproducibility in... (More)


Background: Many translational MR biomarkers derive from measurements of the water proton longitudinal relaxation rate R
1
, but evidence for between-site reproducibility of R
1
in small-animal MRI is lacking. Objective: To assess R
1
repeatability and multi-site reproducibility in phantoms for preclinical MRI. Methods: R
1
was measured by saturation recovery in 2% agarose phantoms with five nickel chloride concentrations in 12 magnets at 5 field strengths in 11 centres on two different occasions within 1–13 days. R
1
was analysed in three different regions of interest, giving 360 measurements in total. Root-mean-square repeatability and reproducibility coefficients of variation (CoV) were calculated. Propagation of reproducibility errors into 21 translational MR measurements and biomarkers was estimated. Relaxivities were calculated. Dynamic signal stability was also measured. Results: CoV for day-to-day repeatability (N = 180 regions of interest) was 2.34% and for between-centre reproducibility (N = 9 centres) was 1.43%. Mostly, these do not propagate to biologically significant between-centre error, although a few R
1
-based MR biomarkers were found to be quite sensitive even to such small errors in R
1
, notably in myocardial fibrosis, in white matter, and in oxygen-enhanced MRI. The relaxivity of aqueous Ni
2+
in 2% agarose varied between 0.66 s
−1
mM
−1
at 3 T and 0.94 s
−1
mM
−1
at 11.7T. Interpretation: While several factors affect the reproducibility of R
1
-based MR biomarkers measured preclinically, between-centre propagation of errors arising from intrinsic equipment irreproducibility should in most cases be small. However, in a few specific cases exceptional efforts might be required to ensure R
1
-reproducibility.

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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Biomarker, Error propagation, Hardware stability, MRI, Phantom, Relaxation time, Reproducibility
in
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
volume
59
pages
9 pages
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • pmid:30872166
  • scopus:85063465779
ISSN
0730-725X
DOI
10.1016/j.mri.2019.03.008
language
English
LU publication?
yes
id
138e35e8-677e-4d71-9a4f-7adfc0b317f8
date added to LUP
2019-04-05 12:29:12
date last changed
2024-02-14 21:10:35
@article{138e35e8-677e-4d71-9a4f-7adfc0b317f8,
  abstract     = {{<p><br>
                                                         Background: Many translational MR biomarkers derive from measurements of the water proton longitudinal relaxation rate R                             <br>
                            <sub>1</sub><br>
                                                         , but evidence for between-site reproducibility of R                             <br>
                            <sub>1</sub><br>
                                                          in small-animal MRI is lacking. Objective: To assess R                             <br>
                            <sub>1</sub><br>
                                                          repeatability and multi-site reproducibility in phantoms for preclinical MRI. Methods: R                             <br>
                            <sub>1</sub><br>
                                                          was measured by saturation recovery in 2% agarose phantoms with five nickel chloride concentrations in 12 magnets at 5 field strengths in 11 centres on two different occasions within 1–13 days. R                             <br>
                            <sub>1</sub><br>
                                                          was analysed in three different regions of interest, giving 360 measurements in total. Root-mean-square repeatability and reproducibility coefficients of variation (CoV) were calculated. Propagation of reproducibility errors into 21 translational MR measurements and biomarkers was estimated. Relaxivities were calculated. Dynamic signal stability was also measured. Results: CoV for day-to-day repeatability (N = 180 regions of interest) was 2.34% and for between-centre reproducibility (N = 9 centres) was 1.43%. Mostly, these do not propagate to biologically significant between-centre error, although a few R                             <br>
                            <sub>1</sub><br>
                                                         -based MR biomarkers were found to be quite sensitive even to such small errors in R                             <br>
                            <sub>1</sub><br>
                                                         , notably in myocardial fibrosis, in white matter, and in oxygen-enhanced MRI. The relaxivity of aqueous Ni                             <br>
                            <sup>2+</sup><br>
                                                          in 2% agarose varied between 0.66 s                             <br>
                            <sup>−1</sup><br>
                                                          mM                             <br>
                            <sup>−1</sup><br>
                                                          at 3 T and 0.94 s                             <br>
                            <sup>−1</sup><br>
                                                          mM                             <br>
                            <sup>−1</sup><br>
                                                          at 11.7T. Interpretation: While several factors affect the reproducibility of R                             <br>
                            <sub>1</sub><br>
                                                         -based MR biomarkers measured preclinically, between-centre propagation of errors arising from intrinsic equipment irreproducibility should in most cases be small. However, in a few specific cases exceptional efforts might be required to ensure R                             <br>
                            <sub>1</sub><br>
                                                         -reproducibility.                         <br>
                        </p>}},
  author       = {{Waterton, John C. and Hines, Catherine D.G. and Hockings, Paul D. and Laitinen, Iina and Ziemian, Sabina and Campbell, Simon and Gottschalk, Michael and Green, Claudia and Haase, Michael and Hassemer, Katja and Juretschke, Hans Paul and Koehler, Sascha and Lloyd, William and Luo, Yanping and Mahmutovic Persson, Irma and O'Connor, James P.B. and Olsson, Lars E. and Pindoria, Kashmira and Schneider, Jurgen E. and Sourbron, Steven and Steinmann, Denise and Strobel, Klaus and Tadimalla, Sirisha and Teh, Irvin and Veltien, Andor and Zhang, Xiaomeng and Schütz, Gunnar}},
  issn         = {{0730-725X}},
  keywords     = {{Biomarker; Error propagation; Hardware stability; MRI; Phantom; Relaxation time; Reproducibility}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{121--129}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Magnetic Resonance Imaging}},
  title        = {{Repeatability and reproducibility of longitudinal relaxation rate in 12 small-animal MRI systems}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.mri.2019.03.008}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.mri.2019.03.008}},
  volume       = {{59}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}