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A reusable 3D printed brain-like phantom for benchmarking electrical properties tomography reconstructions
T G Meerbothe1,2, S Florczak3, C A T van den Berg1,2
1Department of Radiotherapy, Division of Imaging and Oncology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Purpose:
In MR electrical properties tomography (MR-EPT), electrical properties (EPs, conductivity and permittivity) are reconstructed from MR measurements. Phantom measurements are important to characterize the performance of MR-EPT reconstruction methods, since they allow knowledge of reference EPs values. To assess reconstruction methods in a more realistic scenario, it is important to test the methods using phantoms with realistic shapes, internal structures, and dielectric properties. In this work, we present a 3D printing procedure for the creation of realistic brain-like phantoms to benchmark MR-EPT reconstructions.
Methods:
We created two brain-like geometries with three different compartments using 3D printing. The first geometry was filled once, while the second geometry was filled three times with different saline-gelatin solutions, resulting in a total of four phantoms with different EPs. The saline solutions were characterized using a probe. 3D MR-EPT reconstructions were performed from MR measurements at 3T. The reconstructed conductivity values were compared to reference values of the saline-gelatin solutions. The measured fields were also compared to simulated fields using the same phantom geometry and electrical properties.
Results:
The measured fields were consistent with simulated fields. Reconstructed conductivity values were consistent with the reference (probe) conductivity values. This indicated the suitability of such phantoms for benchmarking MR-EPT reconstructions.
Conclusion:
We presented a new workflow to 3D print realistic brain-like phantoms in an easy and affordable way. These phantoms are suitable to benchmark MR-EPT reconstructions, but can also be used for benchmarking other quantitative MR methods.
