Dependence of intravoxel incoherent motion diffusion MR threshold b-value selection for separating perfusion and diffusion compartments and liver fibrosis diagnostic performance.

Background: Intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) tissue parameters depend on the threshold b-value.

Purpose: To explore how threshold b-value impacts PF ( f), D ( D), and D ( D*) values and their performance for liver fibrosis detection.

Material And Methods: Fifteen healthy volunteers and 33 hepatitis B patients were included. With a 1.5-T magnetic resonance (MR) scanner and respiration gating, IVIM data were acquired with ten b-values of 10, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, 150, 200, 400, and 800 s/mm. Signal measurement was performed on the right liver. Segmented-unconstrained analysis was used to compute IVIM parameters and six threshold b-values in the range of 40-200 s/mm were compared. PF, D, and D values were placed along the x-axis, y-axis, and z-axis, and a plane was defined to separate volunteers from patients.

Results: Higher threshold b-values were associated with higher PF measurement; while lower threshold b-values led to higher D and D measurements. The dependence of PF, D, and D on threshold b-value differed between healthy livers and fibrotic livers; with the healthy livers showing a higher dependence. Threshold b-value = 60 s/mm showed the largest mean distance between healthy liver datapoints vs. fibrotic liver datapoints, and a classification and regression tree showed that a combination of PF (PF < 9.5%), D (D < 1.239 × 10 mm/s), and D (D < 20.85 × 10 mm/s) differentiated healthy individuals and all individual fibrotic livers with an area under the curve of logistic regression (AUC) of 1.

Conclusion: For segmented-unconstrained analysis, the selection of threshold b-value = 60 s/mm improves IVIM differentiation between healthy livers and fibrotic livers.