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by Ebony R. Gunwhy, Steven Sourbron, Sirisha Tadimalla, Catherine D. G. Hines, Claudia Green, Iina Laitinen, Paul D. Hockings, Gunnar Schütz, John C. Waterton, Gerry Kenna on behalf of the TRISTAN Consortium

ISMRM 2023

Abstract

In normal hepatic function, toxins are absorbed and consequently excreted by the liver. As a liver-specific contrast agent which is actively taken up by the hepatocytes of the liver, gadoxetate dynamic contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) combined with tracer-kinetic (TK) modelling has the potential to be a useful tool for assessing hepatic transporter-mediated drug injury in animals and humans in vivo. However, in small animal studies, the ratio of main vessel diameter to scanning resolution is small, making it difficult to reliably measure the plasma arterial input function (AIF), cp(t). Signal data acquired from spleen ROIs are therefore typically used as a substitute, though these can also be unreliable. The aim of this study was to investigate the accuracy of modelling gadoxetate signals in rat liver when using signal data acquired from individual spleen ROIs as AIF and compare this with two alternatives, i.e., using 1) pooled spleen data as AIF, and 2) a standardised AIF derived from a simplified, two-compartment model of the rat circulation (hereafter referred to as the fixed model AIF).