Multicenter, multivendor phantom study to validate proton density fat fraction and T2* values calculated using...

Area of Science:

• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
• Medical Physics
• Quantitative Imaging

Background:

• Accurate fat quantification is crucial in various clinical applications.
• Proton density fat fraction (PDFF) and T2* are key quantitative MRI parameters.
• Reproducibility of these parameters across different MRI systems is essential for reliable clinical use.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the reproducibility of PDFF and T2* measurements.
• To compare performance across three different 3T MRI systems.
• To evaluate the accuracy of 6-point DIXON methods for fat-water quantification.

Main Methods:

• A fat-water phantom with known fat fractions was utilized.
• Scans were performed on three distinct 3T MRI scanners from different vendors.
• PDFF and T2* values were measured using a 6-point DIXON technique.

Main Results:

• PDFF demonstrated high consistency across all vendors, with small mean differences from true fat fraction (-2.11% to 0.41%).
• T2* measurements exhibited significant variability between vendors, with large difference ratios (1.79 to 3.36).

Conclusions:

• PDFF measurements are reproducible and consistent across different 3T MRI vendors using the 6-point DIXON method.
• T2* measurements show substantial inter-vendor variability, limiting its cross-platform comparability.
• Further standardization of T2* acquisition protocols may be necessary for multi-vendor studies.