Image quality of standard and synthetic diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging in prostate cancer
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
The extension from Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging to synthetic imaging has the clear advantage of being able to continually image the patient after the exam. MR techniques such as DWI are commonly used but have some clear disadvantages resulting from the use of echoplanar imaging. It should then be asked whether one imaging technique is objectively better. If one technique is better, the incorporation in clinical settings could produce better diagnostic rates, and save valuable time. In order to quantitatively assess the quality of these techniques, the SNR and CNR values of similar tissues were compared. The pre-analysis discussion concentrating on the spatial resolution and artifacts, supports that synthetic images have an advantage over DWI due to higher resolution and absence of artifacts. The SNR and CNR values were calculated for each patient and image type for the comparison, initially assuming that the synthetic images would have a higher mean SNR and CNR. In most cases the differences between scan types was found to not be statistically significant. In conclusion, this analysis could not support the initial theory that the synthetic images had a higher SNR or CNR. The research shows that they are more likely to be comparable. An investigation of the diagnostic power of the synthetic in comparison to standard DWI would give clinical relevance to these results.