ADC Measurement Accuracy in Quantitative Diffusion Phantoms using Reduced Field-Of-View and Multi-Shot Acquisitions

Abstract

Diffusion MRI (dMRI) is typically performed using single-shot Echo Planar Imaging (ssEPI). However, the long echo-trains in ssEPI result in significant image distortion in the presence of static B0 field inhomogeneties. Several techniques have been proposed for reducing the echo-train length in dMRI in order to reduce image distortions compared to ssEPI. Reduced-Field-of-View (rFOV) imaging has been demonstrated in regions such as the spinal cord [1] and pancreas [2]. Multi-shot EPI (msEPI) is based on an interleaved segmented k-space acquisition that enables full FOV dMRI with reduced distortion (upon correction of inter-shot phase inconsistencies) [3]. Both rFOV and msEPI have been shown to provide high quality diffusion weighted images. However, their ability to provide accurate quantitative diffusion measures has not been fully characterized. In this study we extend the work from Banerjee et al [4] by conducting controlled experiments in two recently proposed quantitative diffusion phantoms to compare the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) measured from three diffusion sequences: ssEPI, rFOV and msEPI.