Inter-study reproducibility of arterial spin labelling magnetic resonance imaging for measurement of renal perfusion in healthy volunteers at 3 Tesla

Abstract

BackgroundMeasurement of renal perfusion is a crucial part of measuring kidney function. Arterial spin labelling magnetic resonance imaging (ASL MRI) is a non-invasive method of measuring renal perfusion using magnetised blood as endogenous contrast. We studied the reproducibility of ASL MRI in normal volunteers.MethodsASL MRI was performed in healthy volunteers on 2 occasions using a 3.0 Tesla MRI scanner with flow-sensitive alternating inversion recovery (FAIR) perfusion preparation with a steady state free precession (True-FISP) pulse sequence. Kidney volume was measured from the scanned images. Routine serum and urine biochemistry were measured prior to MRI scanning.Results12 volunteers were recruited yielding 24 kidneys, with a mean participant age of 44.1 ± 14.6 years, blood pressure of 136/82 mmHg and chronic kidney disease epidemiology formula estimated glomerular filtration rate (CKD EPI eGFR) of 98.3 ± 15.1 ml/min/1.73 m2. Mean kidney volumes measured using the ellipsoid formula and voxel count method were 123.5 ± 25.5 cm3, and 156.7 ± 28.9 cm3 respectively. Mean kidney perfusion was 229 ± 41 ml/min/100 g and mean cortical perfusion was 327 ± 63 ml/min/100 g, with no significant differences between ASL MRIs. Mean absolute kidney perfusion calculated from kidney volume measured during the scan was 373 ± 71 ml/min. Bland Altman plots were constructed of the cortical and whole kidney perfusion measurements made at ASL MRIs 1 and 2. These showed good agreement between measurements, with a random distribution of means plotted against differences observed. The intra class correlation for cortical perfusion was 0.85, whilst the within subject coefficient of variance was 9.2%. The intra class correlation for whole kidney perfusion was 0.86, whilst the within subject coefficient of variance was 7.1%.ConclusionsASL MRI at 3.0 Tesla provides a repeatable method of measuring renal perfusion in healthy subjects without the need for administration of exogenous compounds. We have established normal values for renal perfusion using ASL MRI in a cohort of healthy volunteers.

Single-shot Multi-slice T1 Mapping at High Spatial Resolution – Inversion-Recovery FLASH with Radial Undersampling and Iterative Reconstruction

“…This impression is confirmed by the numerical results in Table 3 for brain (frontal and parietal white and gray matter), liver, and kidney (cortex and medulla). Because a comprehensive determination of in vivo data for various tissues is outside the scope of this work, the present results are only compared to some most recent literature findings [16][17][18]. As it turns out all T1 values are close to published data.…”

“…For experimental details see Table 1, numerical results are given in Table 3. Kidney medulla 1.75 ± 0.09 1.75 ± 0.08 1.77 ± 0.05 1.65 ± 0.09 [18] All values (mean ± SD) are given in s. Multi-slice data refer to the same section. (Top left) Single-shot proton density (first section) and (top right to bottom right) simultaneous multi-slice T1 maps at 1.5 mm resolution obtained for human liver (healthy subject).…”

Non-Contrast Renal Magnetic Resonance Imaging to Assess Perfusion and Corticomedullary Differentiation in Health and Chronic Kidney Disease

“…In humans, good reproducibility has been confirmed in healthy volunteer (HV) studies [6]. For example, in a recent study, a coefficient of variance of 9.2 and 7.1% for cortical perfusion and whole kidney perfusion was demonstrated [7]. A small number of studies have shown reduced perfusion in patients with CKD compared to controls [8,9], and in poorly functioning kidney transplants compared to transplants with better function [10,11,12].…”

Renal Arterial Spin Labeling Magnetic Resonance Imaging

“…A good repeatability of the perfusion measurements (reported as coefficient of variation, CV) was found over the cortex [29,32,33,34] (CV = 4-16%) and the whole kidney [33,34] (CV = 3-7%), while the data for the renal medulla are sparse [34]. A good correlation of the cortical renal blood flow (RBF) was found for ASL and DSC MRI [29,35] in healthy volunteers.…”