Keywords:
Musculoskeletal joint, Musculoskeletal system, Musculoskeletal soft tissue, MR, PACS, Contrast agent-intravenous, Diagnostic procedure, Technical aspects, Arthritides, Inflammation
Authors:
J. C. van den Noort, C. den Harder, C. Lavini, J. Huguet, P. F. C. Groot, A. J. Nederveen, M. Maas; Amsterdam/NL
DOI:
10.1594/ecr2018/C-0043
Aims and objectives
Dynamic Contrast Enhanced (DCE) MRI is a widely used diagnostic tool.
Analysis of DCE-MRI,
by deriving Time Intensity Curve (TIC) shapes and Maximum Enhancement (ME),
has been shown to facilitate diagnosis of various diseases [1-4].
One important example is the capability of differentiating clinically active juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) from inactive disease [5,
6].
In active JIA with synovial joint inflammation,
a TIC shape representing fast initial enhancement of contrast agent followed by quick washout is prominent and ME is elevated.
Discrimination of active versus inactive JIA is clinically very relevant in order to predict flare,
determine the treatment approach and avoid the unnecessary use and burden of costly anti-rheumatic drugs [5,
7].
However,
data analysis of DCE-MRI is typically only used in a research setting as it requires multiple manual actions in dedicated software,
which hampers adoption in clinical routine.
For clinical practice,
an automated and fast analysis,
which provides direct,
validated and meaningful results to the radiologist,
is required.
We present a method for fully automatic TIC-shape and ME analysis of DCE-MRI for clinical diagnosis.