DSC Perfusion MRI Artefact Reduction Strategies: A Short Overview for Clinicians and Scientific Applications

Area of Science:

• Neuroimaging
• Medical Physics
• Radiology

Background:

• Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast (DSC) MRI is vital for diagnosing neurological conditions like stroke and brain tumors.
• DSC MRI provides critical hemodynamic metrics (CBF, CBV, MTT, Tmax) but suffers from reproducibility issues.
• Lack of standardized pre-processing and quality control protocols hinders DSC MRI's diagnostic reliability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify common DSC MRI artefacts and evaluate pre-processing methods for their correction.
• To establish expert consensus on DSC MRI pre-processing protocols.
• To highlight areas needing further research in DSC MRI artefact mitigation.

Main Methods:

• Comprehensive literature review of DSC MRI artefacts and pre-processing techniques.
• Evaluation of the practical applicability and validation status of identified pre-processing methods.
• Multidisciplinary expert consensus-building on pre-processing strategies.

Main Results:

• Common artefacts include geometric distortions, slice timing misalignment, physiological noise, motion, B1 inhomogeneities, Gibbs ringing, and noise.
• Robust methods exist for correcting geometric distortions, motion, and slice timing.
• Methods for B1 inhomogeneities, Gibbs ringing, and noise require further validation for DSC MRI.

Conclusions:

• Standardized DSC MRI pre-processing is essential for reliable neurological diagnostics and research.
• Further validation of artefact correction methods, especially for B1 inhomogeneities, Gibbs ringing, and noise, is needed.
• Implementing effective pre-processing and quality assurance (e.g., phantom scans) will improve DSC MRI reproducibility and accuracy.