Effect of gadolinium chelate contrast agents on diffusion weighted MR imaging of the liver, spleen, pancreas and kidney at 3 T.

Purpose: To retrospectively test the null hypotheses that the qualitative appearance of DWI and the signal intensity values in DWI and corresponding ADC values of the liver, spleen, pancreas and kidneys are identical before and after the administration of gadolinium.

Materials And Methods: Following IRB approval, DWI was acquired in 50 patients (25 male; mean age 54.9 years) prior to and after contrast administration, using single-shot echo planar imaging with b-values of 50 s/mm2 and 800 s/mm2 at 3 T.