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A rapid multi-parametric quantitative MR imaging method to assess Parkinson's disease: a feasibility study
Min Duan1, Rongrong Pan2, Qing Gao2
1Department of Radiology, Jiangsu Province Hospital of Chinese Medicine, Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China.
Background:
MULTIPLEX is a single-scan three-dimensional multi-parametric MRI technique that provides 1 mm isotropic T1-, T2*-, proton density- and susceptibility-weighted images and the corresponding quantitative maps. This study aimed to investigate its feasibility of clinical application in Parkinson's disease (PD).
Methods:
27 PD patients and 23 healthy control (HC) were recruited and underwent a MULTIPLEX scanning. All image reconstruction and processing were automatically performed with in-house C + + programs on the Automatic Differentiation using Expression Template platform. According to the HybraPD atlas consisting of 12 human brain subcortical nuclei, the region-of-interest (ROI) based analysis was conducted to extract quantitative parameters, then identify PD-related abnormalities from the T1, T2* and proton density maps and quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM), by comparing patients and HCs.
Results:
The ROI-based analysis revealed significantly decreased mean T1 values in substantia nigra pars compacta and habenular nuclei, mean T2* value in subthalamic nucleus and increased mean QSM value in subthalamic nucleus in PD patients, compared to HCs (all p values < 0.05 after FDR correction). The receiver operating characteristic analysis showed all these four quantitative parameters significantly contributed to PD diagnosis (all p values < 0.01 after FDR correction). Furthermore, the two quantitative parameters in subthalamic nucleus showed hemicerebral differences in regard to the clinically dominant side among PD patients.
Conclusions:
MULTIPLEX might be feasible for clinical application to assist in PD diagnosis and provide possible pathological information of PD patients' subcortical nucleus and dopaminergic midbrain regions.
