Multi-centre reproducibility of diffusion MRI parameters for clinical sequences in the brain
Open accessAbstract
The purpose of this work was to assess the reproducibility of diffusion imaging, and in particular the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC), intra‐voxel incoherent motion (IVIM) parameters and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) parameters, across multiple centres using clinically available protocols with limited harmonization between sequences. An ice–water phantom and nine healthy volunteers were scanned across fives centres on eight scanners (four Siemens 1.5T, four Philips 3T). The mean ADC, IVIM parameters (diffusion coefficient D and perfusion fraction f ) and DTI parameters (mean diffusivity MD and fractional anisotropy FA), were measured in grey matter, white matter and specific brain sub‐regions. A mixed effect model was used to measure the intra‐ and inter‐scanner coefficient of variation (CV) for each of the five parameters. ADC, D , MD and FA had a good intra‐ and inter‐scanner reproducibility in both grey and white matter, with a CV ranging between 1% and 7.4%; mean 2.6%. Other brain regions also showed high levels of reproducibility except for small structures such as the choroid plexus. The IVIM parameter f had a higher intra‐scanner CV of 8.4% and inter‐scanner CV of 24.8%. No major difference in the inter‐scanner CV for ADC, D , MD and FA was observed when analysing the 1.5T and 3T scanners separately. ADC, D , MD and FA all showed good intra‐scanner reproducibility, with the inter‐scanner reproducibility being comparable or faring slightly worse, suggesting that using data from multiple scanners does not have an adverse effect compared with using data from the same scanner. The IVIM parameter f had a poorer inter‐scanner CV when scanners of different field strengths were combined, and the parameter was also affected by the scan acquisition resolution. This study shows that the majority of diffusion MRI derived parameters are robust across 1.5T and 3T scanners and suitable for use in multi‐centre clinical studies and trials. © 2015 The Authors NMR in Biomedicine Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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Improved harmonization of multi-site diffusion data is of great interest.
“As a result, improved harmonization of multi-site diffusion data is of great interest (Grech-Sollars et al., 2015; Pohl et al., 2016; Palacios et al., 2017).”
From Diffusion MRI Indices and Their Relation to Cognitive Impairment in Brain Aging: The Updated Multi-protocol Approach in ADNI3 (2019) · cites this paper as Grech-Sollars et al., 2015
The Introduction identifies comparability of diffusion data from different scanners as an important question and discusses harmonization across sites. But the Discussion (> Volunteers; page unavailable) concludes that large multi-centre studies may be feasible without extensive protocol harmonization, rather than advocating improved harmonization. (LLM, conf=0.78)
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- Authors
- Grech‐Sollars, M., Hales, P. W., Miyazaki, K., Raschke, F., Rodriguez, D., Wilson, M., Gill, S. K., Banks, T., Saunders, D. E., Clayden, J. D., Gwilliam, M. N., Barrick, T. R., Morgan, P. S., Davies, N. P., Rossiter, J., Auer, D. P., Grundy, R., Leach, M. O., Howe, F. A., Peet, A. C., & Clark, C. A.
- Affiliations
- University College London (GB)
- Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (GB)
- University of London (GB)
- Division of Clinical Neuroscience, School of Medicine University of Nottingham Nottingham UK
- University of Birmingham (GB)
- Great Ormond Street Hospital (GB)
- CR UK and EPSRC Cancer Imaging Centre Institute of Cancer Research and Royal Marsden Foundation Trust Belmont Surrey UK
- University of Nottingham (GB)
- University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Grech‐Sollars, Matthew
- ORCID
- Venue
- NMR in Biomedicine
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2015-03-19
- Volume
- 28
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 468-485
- ISSN
- 0952-3480 (ISSN-L)
- 1099-1492
- PMC
- PMC4403968
- OpenAlex
- W1617250309
- Cited by
- 213
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 19 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 14 · 2023: 25 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 23 · 2020: 20 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 27 · 2017: 15 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 15.40
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- NMR in Biomedicine (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- St George's Online Research Archive (St George's University of London) (acceptedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- University of Birmingham Research Portal (University of Birmingham) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Cancer Research UK (C7809/A10342)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced MRI Techniques and Applications
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › MRI in cancer diagnosis
- Keywords
- apparent diffusion coefficient, intravoxel incoherent motion, diffusion tensor imaging, inter-scanner variability, white matter, perfusion fraction
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Body Water, Brain, Diffusion, Humans, Ice, Models, Theoretical, Motion, Water, Reproducibility of Results, Anisotropy, Phantoms, Imaging, Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, Neuroimaging, White Matter
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