Copenhagen, Denmark
Onsite/Online

ESTRO 2022

Session Item

Sunday
May 08
14:15 - 15:30
Room D5
ESTRO-ISMRM: Quantitative MRI for radiation oncology
Daniela Thorwarth, Germany;
Oliver Gurney-Champion, The Netherlands;
Petra van Houdt, The Netherlands
Joint Symposium
Physics
14:30 - 14:45
Technical challenges of qMRI
Kathryn Keenan, USA
SP-0535

Abstract

Technical challenges of qMRI
Authors:

Kathryn Keenan1

1National Institute of Standards and Technology, Physical Measurement Laboratory, Boulder, USA

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Abstract Text

MRI offers many potential benefits to radiation therapy treatment planning because of the ability to visualize soft tissues. Additionally, quantitative MRI could be used to distinguish healthy from cancerous tissues. However, quantitative MRI does not always yield the same result across systems and even on the same systems, results can change with time. This has been demonstrated in vivo and in phantoms by several groups (Lee et al, MRM 2019; Stikov et al, MRM 2015; Keenan et al JMRI 2019). One option is to fix the system and software settings across sites, and this yields highly reproducible results (Weiskopf et al, Frontiers in Neuroscience 2013 and Gracien et al NeuroImage 2020). However, requiring certain systems and software versions is not always feasible. Instead, organizations such as RSNA-QIBA and EIBALL are or have developed recommended protocols for quality assurance measurements to enable reproducible quantitative MRI. Recent studies have demonstrated possible quality assurance protocols to assess quantitative MRI measurement repeatability, reproducibility and robustness (Carr et al JACMP 2021). An additional consideration is that some techniques, such as ADC, are highly repeatable across sites (Belli et al JMRI 2015; Winfield et al Radiology 2017), more than single-parameter relaxation measurements (Keenan et al PLOS 2021). In this talk, we'll review the technical challenges, discuss recent studies, and outline how to get started with quality assurance for quantitative MRI.