Intercenter differences in diffusion tensor MRI acquisition

✍ Scribed by Elisabetta Pagani; Jochen G. Hirsch; Petra J.W. Pouwels; Mark A. Horsfield; Elisabetta Perego; Achim Gass; Stefan D. Roosendaal; Frederik Barkhof; Federica Agosta; Marco Rovaris; Domenico Caputo; Antonio Giorgio; Jacqueline Palace; Silvia Marino; Nicola De Stefano; Stefan Ropele; Franz Fazekas; Massimo Filippi

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 286 KB
• Volume: 31
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1053-1807
• DOI: 10.1002/jmri.22186

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Purpose:

To assess the effect on diffusion tensor (DT) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of acquiring data with different scanners.

Materials and Methods:

Forty‐four healthy controls and 36 multiple sclerosis patients with low disability were studied using eight MR scanners with acquisition protocols that were as close to a standard protocol as possible. Between 7 and 13 subjects were studied in each center. Region‐of‐interest (ROI) and histogram‐based analyses of fractional anisotropy (FA), axial (D~ax~), radial (D~rad~), and mean diffusivity (MD) were performed. The influence of variables such as the acquisition center and the control/patient group was determined with an analysis of variance (ANOVA) test.

Results:

The patient/control group explained ≈25% of data variability of FA and D~rad~ from midsagittal corpus callosum (CC) ROIs. Global FA, MD, and D~rad~ in the white matter differentiated patients from controls, but with lower discriminatory power than for the CC. In the gray matter, MD discriminated patients from controls (30% of variability explained by group vs. 17% by center).

Conclusion:

Significant variability of DT‐MRI data can be attributed to the acquisition center, even when a standardized protocol is used. The use of appropriate segmentation methods and statistical models allows DT‐derived metrics to differentiate patients from healthy controls. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2010;31:1458–1468. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.