Fully-automated quality assurance in multi-center studies using MRI phantom measurements

Image quality assessment of a 1.5T dedicated magnetic resonance-simulator for radiotherapy with a flexible radio frequency coil setting using the standard American College of Radiology magnetic resonance imaging phantom test

“…There have been a number of publications of the ACR phantom test conducted on diagnostic MRI scanners (10)(11)(12)(13)(14) for diagnostic MRI QA/QC purpose, while the reports of ACR phantom test on dedicated MR-sim are still sparse (15). Our results showed that ACR phantom image acquired on a 1.5T dedicated MR-sim generally had sufficiently good image quality to pass all ACR recommended criteria, under a compromised flexible coil setting, thus fulfilled the basic requirements for clinical service.…”

Comparison of Automated Brain Volume Measures obtained with NeuroQuant® and FreeSurfer

“…All scans were then submitted to an ADNI site at the Mayo Clinic for inspection and approval before entry into the public database. The use of consistent sequence protocols, consistent phantoms, and quality assurance criteria have been shown to allow for fully automated evaluation and interpretation of data collected across many different sites and different brand MRI machines . A FS and NQ analyses requires that the scanning center follow acquisition protocols published by ADNI (http://adni.loni.usc.edu/methods/documents/mri-protocols), the Martinos Center (http://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/fswiki/FreeSurferBeginnersGuide), or CorTechs Labs (http://www.cortechslabs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/ScannerSetup.pdf).…”

Automated image quality evaluation of T2‐weighted liver MRI utilizing deep learning architecture

“…In addition, these parameters lend themselves to automation, as the images do not need to be reviewed by a human reader. 7 However, a disadvantage of such metrics is that they do not address whether images are adequate for completing an underlying diagnostic task, such as lesion detection or organ morphology analysis, and sometimes may be of limited value with advances in parallel imaging and nonlinear reconstruction schemes such as compressed sensing. 8 Numerous imaging studies have therefore routinely incorporated "task-based" qualitative metrics to evaluate new sequences or machines.…”