Title: Methodologies for pharmacokinetic post-contrastographic dynamic contrast enhancement

Authors: L. Di Paola, A. Fasano, V. Russo, R. Setola

Addresses: PRABB, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Universita Campus Bio-Medico of Rome, Via Alvaro del Portillo, 21 – 00128, Rome, Italy. ' PRABB, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Universita Campus Bio-Medico of Rome, Via Alvaro del Portillo, 21 – 00128, Rome, Italy. ' PRABB, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Universita Campus Bio-Medico of Rome, Via Alvaro del Portillo, 21 – 00128, Rome, Italy; DIS, Faculty of System Engineering, Universita Sapienza of Rome, Via Ariosto, 25 – 00185, Rome, Italy. ' PRABB, Faculty of Biomedical Engineering, Universita Campus Bio-Medico of Rome, Via Alvaro del Portillo, 21 – 00128, Rome, Italy

Abstract: Post-contrastographic dynamic contrast enhancement (DCE) technique is a non-invasive method aimed at inquiring the vascularisation induced by lesions; it relies on the analysis of the perfusion|s dynamics of contrast agent (CA) within body tissue. The images derived from magnetic resonance (MR), computer tomography (CT) or ultrasound (US) assessments are analysed to derive a contrast enhancement curve, from which some parameters, useful for diagnosis, are acquired. This approach is only qualitative and the estimated parameters have a poor precision and a scarce physical meaning. To overcome these drawbacks, pharmacokinetic models have been introduced for quantitative DCE analysis. In this work, a pharmacokinetic model is proposed, based on physical parameters; it has been applied to the study of post-contrastographic DCE images and parameter estimation has been performed through a maximum likelihood procedure. Results show anomalous value of blood vessel permeability for ill tissues, when compared to healthy ones.

Keywords: biomedical imaging; dynamic contrast enhancement; DCE; pharmacokinetic compartmental modelling; parameter estimation; system identification; system modelling; pharmacokinetics; medical imaging; vascularisation; lesions; contrast agents; blood vessel permeability.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIC.2010.032807

International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control, 2010 Vol.9 No.3, pp.267 - 274

Published online: 23 Apr 2010 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article