Winchell Adam M., Song Ruitian, Loeffler Ralf B., Wang Winfred C., Hankins Jane S., Helton Kathleen J., Hillenbrand Claudia M.
Department of Diagnostic Imaging, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA
Department of Hematology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, USA
J Healthc Eng. 2017;2017. doi: 10.1155/2017/5369385.
To evaluate a new postprocessing framework that eliminates arterial vessel signal contributions in the quantification of normalized visible venous volume (NVVV, a ratio between venous and brain volume) in susceptibility-weighted imaging (SWI) exams in patients with sickle cell disease (SCD).
We conducted a retrospective study and qualitatively reviewed for hypointense arterial vessel contamination in SWI exams from 21 children with SCD. We developed a postprocessing framework using magnetic resonance angiography in combination with SWI to provide a more accurate quantification of NVVV. NVVV was calculated before and after removing arterial vessel contributions to determine the error from hypointense arterial vessels in quantifying NVVV.
Hypointense arterial vessel contamination was observed in 86% SWI exams and was successfully corrected by the proposed method. The contributions of hypointense arterial vessels in the original SWI were significant and accounted for approximately 33% of the NVVV [uncorrected NVVV = 0.012 ± 0.005 versus corrected NVVV = 0.008 ± 0.003 (mean ± SD), P < 0.01].
Hypointense arterial vessel contamination occurred in the majority of SWI exams and led to a sizeable overestimation of the visible venous volume. A prospective longitudinal study is needed to evaluate if quantitation of NVVV was improved and to assess the role of NVVV as a biomarker of SCD severity or stroke risk.
评估一种新的后处理框架，该框架可在镰状细胞病（SCD）患者的磁敏感加权成像（SWI）检查中，在归一化可见静脉体积（NVVV，静脉与脑体积之比）的定量分析中消除动脉血管信号的影响。
我们进行了一项回顾性研究，并对21例SCD患儿的SWI检查中的低信号动脉血管污染进行了定性评估。我们开发了一种结合磁共振血管造影和SWI的后处理框架，以更准确地定量NVVV。在去除动脉血管信号贡献前后计算NVVV，以确定在定量NVVV时低信号动脉血管造成的误差。
86%的SWI检查中观察到低信号动脉血管污染，所提出的方法成功地对其进行了校正。原始SWI中低信号动脉血管的贡献显著，约占NVVV的33%[未校正的NVVV = 0.012±0.005，校正后的NVVV = 0.008±0.003（平均值±标准差），P < 0.01]。
大多数SWI检查中出现低信号动脉血管污染，导致可见静脉体积被大幅高估。需要进行一项前瞻性纵向研究，以评估NVVV定量是否得到改善，并评估NVVV作为SCD严重程度或中风风险生物标志物的作用。
