Quantitative assessment of kidney function using dynamic contrast enhanced MRI

This week's BBG/Vis seminar is a MedViz seminar.

SPEAKERS:

Assoc Prof. Jarle Rørvik (Department of radiology, HUS/UiB),

PhD-student Andrea Anderlik (Department of biomedicine, UiB)

Prof. Antonella Zanna Munthe-Kaas (Department of mathematics, UiB)

Dr. Ola Kristoffer Øye (CMR)

ABSTRACT:

We present a prototype application for assessment of kidney function through GFR (glomerular filtration rate) measurement. The prototype aims to integrate the steps of the processing pipeline from the recorded MRI data to final GFR result, with the purpose of streamlining the workflow of the GFR calculation for the user.Initially, we present the clinical / radiological motivation for the project. In the second part of the talk the design behind the prototype is discussed, including kidney motion correction and pharmacokinetic modeling of voxel time-courses. The GFR estimation is based on a model proposed by Sourbron et al. It assumes a separable two compartment model (plasma plus a tubular region) and an arterial input function. The model has 4 free parameters (flow parameters and mean transit time parameters), that are estimated voxelwise using nonlinear data fitting. The GFR is then computed from the flow parameters and the volume of the kidney cortex.In the last part of the talk, we will demonstrate the prototype application at its present stage of development.