Minimum Reporting Standards for in vivo Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRSinMRS): Experts' consensus...

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Imaging
• Medical Physics
• Neuroimaging

Background:

• Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) shows clinical potential but faces challenges in translation due to inconsistent technical methods.
• Variations in MRS acquisition, post-processing, and analysis significantly impact result interpretation.
• Incomplete reporting of methodological details hinders standardized assessment, manuscript review, and study reproducibility.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish minimum guidelines for reporting MRS methods and results.
• To address the lack of technical standardization in MRS research.
• To facilitate the consistent and reproducible application of MRS in clinical settings.

Main Methods:

• A consensus group of Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) experts convened to define reporting standards.
• Guidelines were developed for the standardized description of MRS hardware, data acquisition, analysis, and quality assessment.
• A checklist was created to aid authors, reviewers, and editors in ensuring comprehensive MRS study reporting.

Main Results:

• Minimum guidelines for reporting MRS methods and results have been established.
• A detailed checklist is provided to assist in the standardized reporting of MRS studies.
• The guidelines cover hardware, acquisition, analysis, and quality assessment aspects of MRS.

Conclusions:

• Standardized reporting of MRS methods is essential for advancing its clinical translation.
• The proposed guidelines and checklist aim to enhance the quality, reproducibility, and comparability of MRS studies.
• Adoption of these standards will facilitate manuscript review, reproducibility, and meta-analyses in the field of MRS.