Interimager variability in ADC measurement of the human brain

Routine clinical practice involves the application of diverse scanning parameters that can affect apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) values. We evaluated interimager variability in ADC values with respect to their potential effect in clinical applications.

In 7 healthy volunteers, we obtained diffusion-weighted (DW) images using routine clinical parameters and 1.5- (n = 9) and 3-tesla (n = 3) magnetic resonance (MR) imagers from 5 different vendors, performing 84 MR imaging studies. To evaluate the differences in ADC values among the imagers, vendors, and magnetic field strengths, we measured the mean pixel values of the frontal white matter and thalamus (gray matter) in both cerebral hemispheres of the 7 volunteers and used repeated-measures analysis of variance for multiple comparisons.

The laterality of ADC values in the bilateral structures ranged from one to 3% for the 12 imagers. Although the relative difference in ADC values of white matter was 7% for scanners yielding the highest and lowest mean ADC values (P < 0.01), it was within 2 to 4% for instruments from the same vendors. For gray matter, the interimager difference was 4 to 12%, even among the same vendors (P < 0.05). Among the 3T imagers, the difference for white and gray matter was approximately 3%.

There were significant interimager differences in ADC values, especially with respect to gray matter. Taking into consideration the existing laterality, however, the differences among our 3T imagers may be acceptable despite the use of diverse scanning parameters. In routine clinical practice, the existing variability must be considered imager by imager.