Patent ID: 8280488

Claim:
A method for dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) of a body part of a patient to determine a plurality of pharmacokinetic (PK) parameters characterizing a mathematical model-based relationship between a plasma tracer concentration and a total tracer concentration within the body part, comprising: receiving a plurality of instances of an MRI volume of the body part acquired at a respective plurality of sample times subsequent to an administration of a tracer, said instances comprising voxels of MRI readings timewise variable according to the total tracer concentration but scalewise uncalibrated therewith in that the voxels of MRI readings are not determinative of calibrated absolute values for said total tracer concentration; for each of said voxels, using a processing system, processing said scalewise uncalibrated MRI readings to compute a first parameter set characteristic of said timewise variations thereof according to a predetermined generalized signal model of a tracer concentration time response, said predetermined generalized signal model being separable between (i) a first subset of generalized signal model parameters determinative of timewise variations of the tracer concentration time response, and (ii) a second subset of generalized signal model parameters determinative of a scale of the tracer concentration time response, said first parameter set corresponding to said first subset of generalized signal model parameters for said MRI readings; receiving an identification of a calibration region within said MRI volume; for each of said voxels, processing said scalewise uncalibrated MRI readings against information derived from said identified calibration region to compute a second parameter set characteristic of a scale of said total tracer concentration, said second parameter set corresponding to said second subset of generalized signal model parameters for said total tracer concentration; receiving an identification of at least one plasma reference region within said MRI volume having known reference PK parameters; computing a third parameter set characteristic of timewise variations of a representative plasma tracer concentration according to said predetermined generalized signal model and fourth parameter set characteristic of a scale of the representative plasma tracer concentration according to said predetermined generalized signal model based on the first and second parameter sets for locations in the at least one identified plasma reference region and said reference PK parameters therefor; and computing said plurality of PK parameters for each of said voxels using said first, second, third and fourth parameter sets.