Purpose: Pharmacokinetic models facilitate assessment of properties of the micro-vascularization based on DCE-MRI data. However, accurate pharmacokinetic modeling in the liver is challenging since it has two vascular inputs and it is subject to large deformation and displacement due to respiration.
Methods: We propose an improved pharmacokinetic model for the liver that (1) analytically models the arrival-time of the contrast agent for both inputs separately; (2) implicitly compensates for signal fluctuations that can be modeled by varying applied flip-angle e.g. due to B1-inhomogeneity. Orton's AIF model is used to analytically represent the vascular input functions. The inputs are independently embedded into the Sourbron model. B1-inhomogeneity-driven variations of flip-angles are accounted for to justify the voxel's displacement with respect to a pre-contrast image.
Results: The new model was shown to yield lower root mean square error (RMSE) after fitting the model to all but a minority of voxels compared to Sourbron's approach. Furthermore, it outperformed this existing model in the majority of voxels according to three model-selection criteria.
Conclusion: Our work primarily targeted to improve pharmacokinetic modeling for DCE-MRI of the liver. However, other types of pharmacokinetic models may also benefit from our approaches, since the techniques are generally applicable.