Diffusion Tensor Imaging of Healthy Skeletal Muscles: A Comparison Between 7 T and 3 T

Objective The aim of this study was to assess and compare the overall performance, reliability, variability, as well as the accuracy of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and fiber tracking metrics, for the muscles of the calf at 3 T and 7 T. Materials and Methods Ten volunteers (5 males; mean age, 29.1 ± 4.7 years), with no history of muscle disease, were examined twice at 3 T and 7 T, using a stimulated-echo acquisition mode DTI sequence. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and DTI metrics (track numbers [trn], length [trl], volume [trv], fractional anisotropy [FA], mean [MD], axial [AD], and radial diffusivity [RD]) of the whole-calf muscles, the tibialis anterior, the gastrocnemius medialis, the gastrocnemius lateralis, and the soleus were collected. The Student t test was used to compare SNR and DTI metrics obtained at 3 T and 7 T. The coefficients of variation and the intraclass correlation coefficients were derived to assess the variability and the reliability of the DTI measurements at 3 T and 7 T. To further assess the accuracy of the measurements, the absolute difference was computed for each DTI metric at 3 T and 7 T and then compared (Student t test). The applied level of significance for all the statistical analyses was P
Source: Investigative Radiology - Category: Radiology Tags: Technical Notes Source Type: research