Premium
Quantitative perfusion mapping with induced transient hypoxia using BOLD MRI
Author(s) -
Vu Chau,
Chai Yaqiong,
Coloigner Julie,
Nederveen Aart J.,
Borzage Matthew,
Bush Adam,
Wood John C.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
magnetic resonance in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.696
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1522-2594
pISSN - 0740-3194
DOI - 10.1002/mrm.28422
Subject(s) - perfusion , cerebral blood flow , gadolinium , hypoxia (environmental) , medicine , bolus (digestion) , perfusion scanning , magnetic resonance imaging , blood flow , nuclear medicine , blood volume , radiology , cardiology , oxygen , chemistry , organic chemistry
Purpose Gadolinium‐based dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) is commonly used to characterize blood flow in patients with stroke and brain tumors. Unfortunately, gadolinium contrast administration has been associated with adverse reactions and long‐term accumulation in tissues. In this work, we propose an alternative deoxygenation‐based DSC (dDSC) method that uses a transient hypoxia gas paradigm to deliver a bolus of paramagnetic deoxygenated hemoglobin to the cerebral vasculature for perfusion imaging. Methods Through traditional DSC tracer kinetic modeling, the MR signal change induced by this hypoxic bolus can be used to generate regional perfusion maps of cerebral blood flow, cerebral blood volume, and mean transit time. This gas paradigm and blood‐oxygen‐level‐dependent (BOLD)‐MRI were performed concurrently on a cohort of 66 healthy and chronically anemic subjects (age 23.5 ± 9.7, female 64%). Results Our results showed reasonable global and regional agreement between dDSC and other flow techniques, such as phase contrast and arterial spin labeling. Conclusion In this proof‐of‐concept study, we demonstrated the feasibility of using transient hypoxia to generate a contrast bolus that mimics the effect of gadolinium and yields reasonable perfusion estimates. Looking forward, optimization of the hypoxia boluses and measurement of the arterial‐input function is necessary to improve the accuracy of dDSC. Additionally, a cross‐validation study of dDSC and DSC in brain tumor and ischemic stroke subjects is warranted to evaluate the clinical diagnostic utility of this approach.