Inconsistent MR acquisition in longitudinal volumetric analysis: Impacts and solutions
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- Authors: Lianrui Zuo, Savannah P. Hays, Blake E. Dewey, Samuel W. Remedios, Yuan Xue, Sandra D. Cassard, Carolyn Koch, Ann Fishman, Aaron Carass, Jerry L. Prince, Ellen M. Mowry, and Scott D. Newsome
- Presented at Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers, 2023
- Description: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful and flexible imaging technique in studing multiple sclerosis (MS). However, the flexibility of MRI often comes at a cost: lack of standardization and consistency across imaging studies. Despite the guidelines provided by the MAGNIMS–CMSC–NAIMS, there are still significant variations of MR acquisition in research and clincal settings. The variablity in MR acquisition poses challenges for consistent and accurate study of MS. In our study, we investigate the impact of inconsistent MR acquisition in longitudinal volumetric analysis. We found that inconsistent acquisition has a strong negative impact on the consistency and statistical power of longitudinal analysis, thus hinders our understanding of MS. We then investigate MR harmoniation as a potential solution to mitigate this issue. Our study suggests that image harmonization effectively alleviates this negative impact, yielding nearly identical consistency as that in standardized and consistent acquisitions.
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