Finite element analysis to investigate variability of MR elastography in the human thigh.

Purpose: To develop finite element analysis (FEA) of magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) in the human thigh and investigate inter-individual variability of measurement of muscle mechanical properties.

Methods: Segmentation was performed on MRI datasets of the human thigh from 5 individuals and FEA models consisting of 12 muscles and surrounding tissue created. The same material properties were applied to each tissue type and a previously developed transient FEA method of simulating MRE using Abaqus was performed at 4 frequencies. Synthetic noise was applied to the simulated data at various levels before inversion was performed using the Elastography Software Pipeline. Maps of material properties were created and visually assessed to determine key features. The coefficient of variation (CoV) was used to assess the variability of measurements in each individual muscle and in the groups of muscles across the subjects. Mean measurements for the set of muscles were ranked in size order and compared with the expected ranking.

Results: At noise levels of 2% the CoV in measurements of |G| ranged from 5.3 to 21.9% and from 7.1 to 36.1% for measurements of ϕ in the individual muscles. A positive correlation (R value 0.80) was attained when the expected and measured |G| ranking were compared, whilst a negative correlation (R value 0.43) was found for ϕ.

Conclusions: Created elastograms demonstrated good definition of muscle structure and were robust to noise. Variability of measurements across the 5 subjects was dramatically lower for |G| than it was for ϕ. This large variability in ϕ measurements was attributed to artefacts.