Comparison of multi-delay FAIR and pCASL labeling approaches for renal perfusion quantification at 3T MRI.
OBJECTIVE
To compare the most commonly used labeling approaches, flow-sensitive alternating inversion recovery (FAIR) and pseudocontinuous arterial spin labeling (pCASL), for renal perfusion measurement using arterial spin labeling (ASL) MRI.


METHODS
Multi-delay FAIR and pCASL were performed in 16 middle-aged healthy volunteers on two different occasions at 3T. Relative perfusion-weighted signal (PWS), temporal SNR (tSNR), renal blood flow (RBF), and arterial transit time (ATT) were calculated for the cortex and medulla in both kidneys. Bland-Altman plots, intra-class correlation coefficient, and within-subject coefficient of variation were used to assess reliability and agreement between measurements.


RESULTS
For the first visit, RBF was 362 ± 57 and 140 ± 47 mL/min/100 g, and ATT was 0.47 ± 0.13 and 0.70 ± 0.10 s in cortex and medulla, respectively, using FAIR; RBF was 201 ± 72 and 84 ± 27 mL/min/100 g, and ATT was 0.71 ± 0.25 and 0.86 ± 0.12 s in cortex and medulla, respectively, using pCASL. For both labeling approaches, RBF and ATT values were not significantly different between visits. Overall, FAIR showed higher PWS and tSNR. Moreover, repeatability of perfusion parameters was better using FAIR.


DISCUSSION
This study showed that compared to (balanced) pCASL, FAIR perfusion values were significantly higher and more comparable between visits.
['Harteveld|Anita A|AA|http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3379-0710', 'de Boer|Anneloes|A|', 'Franklin|Suzanne Lisa|SL|', 'Leiner|Tim|T|', 'van Stralen|Marijn|M|', 'Bos|Clemens|C|']
D000328:Adult D001158:Arteries D005260:Female D005919:Glomerular Filtration Rate D064368:Healthy Volunteers D006801:Humans D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted D007668:Kidney D007672:Kidney Cortex D007679:Kidney Medulla D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging D008297:Male D008875:Middle Aged D010477:Perfusion D011446:Prospective Studies D012079:Renal Circulation D015203:Reproducibility of Results D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio D013113:Spin Labels
Arterial spin labeling (ASL) Renal blood flow Arterial transit time Kidney Magnetic resonance imaging