[A capillary-based perfusion phantom for the simulation of brain perfusion for MRI]

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Medical Imaging Physics
• Neuroimaging

Context:

• Cerebral blood flow (CBF) measurement lacks standardization and reliable gold standards.
• Contrast-enhanced dynamic susceptibility contrast-magnetic resonance imaging (CE-DSC-MRI) is a key neuroimaging technique.
• Validation of software used for CBF quantification is crucial for clinical accuracy.

Purpose:

• To develop and validate a capillary-based perfusion phantom for CE-DSC-MRI.
• To create a tool with flow properties mimicking the human brain's capillary system.
• To enable reliable validation of perfusion quantification software, such as Siemens Perfusion MR.

Summary:

• A perfusion phantom simulating the brain's capillary system was constructed using a dialyzer, feeding tube, and pulsatile pump.
• The phantom facilitated the precise determination of gold standard CBF due to its known geometry.
• Siemens Perfusion MR software was used to measure CBF within the phantom, with 726 data points analyzed against the gold standard.

Impact:

• Established a reproducible method for estimating deviation between gold standard and software-derived CBF.
• Quantified software-based CBF evaluation deviations ranging from 1% to 31%.
• Demonstrated that mean measured CBF was 11.4% higher than the gold standard (p < 0.001), independent of flow speed, enabling reliable software quality assessment.