Quantitative imaging: systematic review of perfusion/flow phantoms

Abstract

Background: We aimed at reviewing design and realisation of perfusion/flow phantoms for validating quantitative perfusion imaging (PI) applications to encourage best practices. Methods: A systematic search was performed on the Scopus database for "perfusion", "flow", and "phantom", limited to articles written in English published between January 1999 and December 2018. Information on phantom design, used PI and phantom applications was extracted. Results: Of 463 retrieved articles, 397 were rejected after abstract screening and 32 after full-text reading. The 37 accepted articles resulted to address PI simulation in brain (n = 11), myocardial (n = 8), liver (n = 2), tumour (n = 1), finger (n = 1), and non-specific tissue (n = 14), with diverse modalities: ultrasound (n = 11), computed tomography (n = 11), magnetic resonance imaging (n = 17), and positron emission tomography (n = 2). Three phantom designs were described: basic (n = 6), aligned capillary (n = 22), and tissue-filled (n = 12). Microvasculature and tissue perfusion were combined in one compartment (n = 23) or in two separated compartments (n = 17). With the only exception of one study, inter-compartmental fluid exchange could not be controlled. Nine studies compared phantom results with human or animal perfusion data. Only one commercially available perfusion phantom was identified. Conclusion: We provided insights into contemporary phantom approaches to PI, which can be used for ground truth evaluation of quantitative PI applications. Investigators are recommended to verify and validate whether assumptions underlying PI phantom modelling are justified for their intended phantom application.

Tissue mimicking materials for imaging and therapy phantoms: a review

“…Much can be learned from surgery where mechanical properties are part of the fabric of testing TMMs. Other functional aspects such as perfusion are also presenting challenges in developing TMMs in many disciplines (Kamphuis et al 2020). Phantoms for testing imaging techniques quantifying blood perfusion must have a complex flow and perfusion system and should simulate spatially distributed small vessels with various different flow directions (Eriksson et al 1995).…”

“…Phantoms for testing imaging techniques quantifying blood perfusion must have a complex flow and perfusion system and should simulate spatially distributed small vessels with various different flow directions (Eriksson et al 1995). An overview of perfusion phantoms including ultrasound, MRI, CT and PET applications has recently been published (Kamphuis et al 2020).…”

“…perfusion) differs significantly from other ultrasound techniques, further discussion is not included in this review, however as is apparent from the low count of papers when searching for CEUS phantom (figure 6(a)), which shows an approximately exponential increase over time, there is certainly room for growth in this area. An overview of perfusion phantoms including US, MRI, CT and PET applications has recently been published (Kamphuis et al 2020). Due to the nature of the main targeted tissue mimicking property, perfusion, in this case often different approaches are suitable for more than one imaging technique.…”

“…In fact, blood perfusion in living organs plays a significant role in heat deposition and temperature distribution (Wang et al 2019). Although efforts are going in this direction (Kamphuis et al 2020) the complexity of mimicking such a condition is still a big challenge.The variation of all the material properties with temperature is extremely important (Rossmann and Haemmerich 2014) due to the nature of the application. However, the availability of these data on tissues is very limited due to challenges in performing the experiments (Guntur et al 2013).…”

A strategy to prevent a temperature‐induced MRI artifact in warm liquid phantoms due to convection currents

“…MRI phantoms have been developed primarily as standard reference objects or calibration tools used to validate the accuracy of in vivo measurements. Phantoms are built for a wide range of applications including geometric distortion, 2-4 motion correction, [5][6][7] Abbreviations used: 2D, two-dimensional; 3D, three-dimensional; ADC, apparent diffusion coefficient; B 0 , static magnetic field; B 1 , applied magnetic field; BW, bandwidth; CPMG, Carr- relaxometry, 8-10 perfusion, [11][12][13] diffusion, [14][15][16] chemical characterization [17][18][19] and MR-guided therapeutics, [20][21][22] all of which attempt to model a standard in vivo environment.…”