Interscanner reproducibility of volumetric quantitative susceptibility mapping about cerebral subcortical gray nuclei...

Quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) technique was a new quantitative magnetic resonance imaging technique to evaluate the cerebral iron deposition in clinical practice. The current study was aimed to investigate the reproducibility of the volumetric susceptibility value of the subcortical gray nuclei at two different MR vendor with the same magnetic strength.

Cerebral magnitude and phase images of 21 normal subjects were acquired from a 3D multiecho enhanced gradient recalled echo sequence at two different 3.0T MR scanner, and then the magnetic susceptibility images were generated by STI software. The brain structural images were coregistered with magnitude images and generated the normalized parameters, and then generated the normalized susceptibility images. The subcortical gray nuclei template was applied to extract the volumetric susceptibility value of the target nuclei.

ICC value (95% CI) of the caudate, putamen and GP were 0.847 (0.660-0.935), 0.848 (0.663-0.935) and 0.838 (0.643-0.931), respectively. The ICC value of the thalamus was 0.474 (0.064-0.747). Ninety-five point two percent (20/21) of the difference points of the susceptibility located between the 95% LA for the caudate at the two different 3.0T MR scanner, while the less than 95% of the difference points of the susceptibility value located between the 95% LA for the putamen, globus pallidus and thalamus.

The current study identified that the caudate had the stable reproducibility of the magnetic susceptibility value, and the other basal ganglion nuclei should be cautious for the quantitative evaluation of the magnetic susceptibility value at different 3.0T MR scanner.