Comparison and evaluation of indicator dilution models for bolus of ultrasound contrast agents

Dynamic contrast-enhanced ultrasound (DCE-US) imaging is a promising diagnostic method, which enables the evaluation of tissue perfusion via different parameters. The mean transit time and time-to-peak parameters are the main time parameters and their values depend on the model used for the approximation of the noisy perfusion curves. In this paper, we described a new comparison of different perfusion models using a tissue mimicking phantom. The following models were compared: log-normal, lagged, Erlang, Gamma and the local density random walk model. We discovered that the mean-square error is not the best criterion for model evaluation. More important is the comparison between the estimated time perfusion parameters and the physical parameters of the developed tissue mimicking phantom. Based on the statistical analysis, we can suggest that for the DCE-US perfusion analysis more models should be used, excluding the log-normal model, which gives the highest error of mean transit time value.