Inter- and intra-rater reliability of blood and cerebrospinal fluid flow quantification by phase-contrast MRI.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the intra- and inter-rater reliability of the quantification of blood and CSF flow rates by phase contrast MRI.


METHODS
Blood and CSF flows in the upper cervical region were imaged with velocity-encoded cine-phase contrast using 3T scanners from different manufacturers at two centers. Data of 6 subjects scanned in center A and of 5 subjects in center B were analyzed by six readers at two levels of training. Each data set was analyzed three times in a randomized order for a total of 33 data sets. Intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC) were calculated for the primary measurements of areas and flow rates through the main cervical arteries, veins and the CSF space, and for secondary parameters derived from the individual flow rates.


RESULTS
ICC ranged from 0.80 to 0.96 for the lumen area and from 0.97 to 0.99 for the volumetric flow rate. The ICC for the derived secondary measures ranged from 0.85 to 0.99. Differences due to operator level of training were not statistically significant.


CONCLUSIONS
High intra- and inter-rater reliability of volumetric flow rate measurements is currently achievable across manufacturers and users' skill levels with a pulsatility based automated lumen segmentation.
Institute for Clinical Radiology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany. ikoerte@med.lmu.de
Inga
I
Koerte
Caroline
C
Haberl
Michael
M
Schmidt
Andreas
A
Pomschar
Sang
S
Lee
Petra
P
Rapp
Denise
D
Steffinger
Rong-Wen
RW
Tain
Noam
N
Alperin
Birgit
B
Ertl-Wagner
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity / Q000502:physiology; D002555:Cerebrospinal Fluid / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*; D002560:Cerebrovascular Circulation / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D055815:Young Adult
MR phase-contrast imaging; flow quantitation; inter-rater reliability; intra-rater reliability; pulsatility-based segmentation