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Abstract #4158

Quality Assurance of Diffusion-Weighted MRI for Multicentre Clinical Trials

Naomi H. M. Douglas1, Jessica M. Winfield1, Nandita M. deSouza1, David John Collins1, Matthew R. Orton1

1Radiotherapy and Imaging, Institute of Cancer Research, Sutton, Surrey, United Kingdom

Temperature-controlled phantoms containing controlled sucrose solutions were used to measure the Apparent Diffusion Coefficient at five European imaging centres. Matched Diffusion-Weighted (DW) MR sequences were applied across three scanner manufacturers. Repeat measurements were acquired over a 6-month period. Inter-site comparison revealed differences in scanner accuracy, precision and stability. Artefacts were identified including spatial variations in ADC of a uniform test object, prompting a recommendation that reproducible subject positioning is ensured in tests of diffusion parameter reproducibility. Results from systems without identifiable artefact suggest that an ADC coefficient of variation of less than 2% is achievable with well controlled scanner set-up.

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