Improving liver tumor image contrast and synthesizing novel tissue contrasts by adaptive multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging fusion

Abstract

Objective: Multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) renders rich and complementary anatomical and functional information, which is often utilized separately.This study aimed to propose an adaptive multiparametric MRI (mpMRI) fusion method, and examine its capability in improving tumor contrast and synthesizing novel tissue contrasts among liver cancer patients.Methods: An adaptive mpMRI fusion method was developed with five components: image pre-processing, fusion algorithm, database, adaptation rules, and fused MRI. The linear-weighted summation algorithm was used for fusion. Weight-driven and featuredriven adaptations were designed for different applications. A clinical-friendly graphic user interface (G was developed in Matlab and used for mpMRI fusion. Twelve liver cancer patients and a digital human phantom were included in the study. Synthesis of novel image contrast, and enhancement of image signal and contrast were examined in patient cases. Tumor contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and liver signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) were evaluated and compared before and after mpMRI fusion. Results:The fusion platform was applicable in both XCAT phantom and patient cases.Novel image contrasts, including enhancement of soft-tissue boundary, vertebral body, tumor, and composition of multiple image features in one image, were achieved. Tumor CNR improved from -1.70 ± 2.57 to 4.88 ± 2.28 (p < 0.0001) for T1-weighted (T1-w), from 3.39 ± 1.89 to 7.87 ± 3.47 (p < 0.01) for T2-w, and from 1.42 ± 1.66 to 7.69 ± 3.54 (p < 0.001) for T2/T1-w MRI. Liver SNR improved from 2.92 ± 2.39 to 9.96 ± 8.60 (p < 0.05) for diffusion-weighted MRI. The coefficient of variation of tumor CNR lowered from 1.57, 0.56, and 1.17 to 0.47, 0.44, and 0.46 for T1-w, T2-w, and T2/T1-w MRI, respectively. Conclusion:A multiparametric MRI fusion method was proposed and a prototype was developed. The method showed potential in improving clinically relevant features, suchThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

A Targeted Multi-Crystalline Manganese Oxide as a Tumor-Selective Nano-Sized MRI Contrast Agent for Early and Accurate Diagnosis of Tumors

“…MRI contrast agents (MRICAs) are usually used to improve the distinction between normal and tumor tissues. [6][7][8] MRICAs are developed mainly based on paramagnetic gadolinium (Gd) and manganese complexes that have long electronic relaxation durations and abundant unpaired electrons. 9,10 The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the use of magnetic iron oxide as a T 2 MRICA; however, gadolinium (Gd)-and manganese (Mn)-based T 1 MRICAs are predominantly used in clinical settings.…”