@article{bcc1831e96cc4db8b0c22a362653846c,
title = "Multi-center evaluation of stability and reproducibility of quantitative MRI measures in healthy calf muscles",
abstract = "The purpose of this study was to evaluate temporal stability, multi-center reproducibility and the influence of covariates on a multimodal MR protocol for quantitative muscle imaging and to facilitate its use as a standardized protocol for evaluation of pathology in skeletal muscle. Quantitative T2, quantitative diffusion and four-point Dixon acquisitions of the calf muscles of both legs were repeated within one hour. Sixty-five healthy volunteers (31 females) were included in one of eight 3-T MR systems. Five traveling subjects were examined in six MR scanners. Average values over all slices of water-T2 relaxation time, proton density fat fraction (PDFF) and diffusion metrics were determined for seven muscles. Temporal stability was tested with repeated measured ANOVA and two-way random intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Multi-center reproducibility of traveling volunteers was assessed by a two-way mixed ICC. The factors age, body mass index, gender and muscle were tested for covariance. ICCs of temporal stability were between 0.963 and 0.999 for all parameters. Water-T2 relaxation decreased significantly (P < 10 −3) within one hour by ~ 1 ms. Multi-center reproducibility showed ICCs within 0.879–0.917 with the lowest ICC for mean diffusivity. Different muscles showed the highest covariance, explaining 20–40% of variance for observed parameters. Standardized acquisition and processing of quantitative muscle MRI data resulted in high comparability among centers. The imaging protocol exhibited high temporal stability over one hour except for water T2 relaxation times. These results show that data pooling is feasible and enables assembling data from patients with neuromuscular diseases, paving the way towards larger studies of rare muscle disorders. ",
keywords = "diffusion-weighted imaging, muscle, quantitation, skeletal",
author = "Lara Schlaffke and Robert Rehmann and Marlena Rohm and Otto, {Louise A. M.} and {de Luca}, Alberto and Jedrzej Burakiewicz and Celine Baligand and Jithsa Monte and {den Harder}, Chiel and Hooijmans, {Melissa T.} and Aart Nederveen and Sarah Schlaeger and Dominik Weidlich and Karampinos, {Dimitrios C.} and Anders Stouge and Michael Vaeggemose and D'Angelo, {Maria Grazia} and Filippo Arrigoni and Kan, {Hermien E.} and Martijn Froeling",
note = "Funding Information: LS received funding from the Ruhr University Research School PLUS, funded by Germany's Excellence Initiative [DFG GSC 98/3]. JB, MTH and HEK were partially supported by the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 602485. HEK reports grants from ZonMW, AFM, Duchenne Parent Project, Gratama Stichting, NWO and research support from Philips Healthcare, consultancy for BioMarin and aTyr Pharma, and trial support from ImagingDMD‐UF outside the submitted work. CB received funding from NWO VIDI grant number 917 l 6490 to HEK. We thank Burkhard M{\"a}dler from Philips Germany for continuous scientific support. The authors do not have any conflict of interest to declare. Funding Information: LS received funding from the Ruhr University Research School PLUS, funded by Germany's Excellence Initiative [DFG GSC 98/3]. JB, MTH and HEK were partially supported by the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for research technological development and demonstration under grant agreement no 602485. HEK reports grants from ZonMW, AFM, Duchenne Parent Project, Gratama Stichting, NWO and research support from Philips Healthcare, consultancy for BioMarin and aTyr Pharma, and trial support from ImagingDMD-UF outside the submitted work. CB received funding from NWO VIDI grant number 917?l 6490 to HEK. We thank Burkhard M?dler from Philips Germany for continuous scientific support. The authors do not have any conflict of interest to declare. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.",
year = "2019",
month = sep,
doi = "10.1002/nbm.4119",
language = "English",
volume = "32",
journal = "NMR in Biomedicine",
issn = "0952-3480",
publisher = "John Wiley & Sons Inc.",
number = "9",
}