Influence of image registration on apparent diffusion coefficient images computed from free-breathing diffusion MR images of the abdomen.

Background: To evaluate the influence of image registration on apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) images obtained from abdominal free-breathing diffusion-weighted MR images (DW-MRIs).

Methods: A comprehensive pipeline based on automatic three-dimensional nonrigid image registrations is developed to compensate for misalignments in DW-MRI datasets obtained from five healthy subjects scanned twice. Motion is corrected both within each image and between images in a time series.