Clinical prostate diffusion acquisitions are notoriously inefficient. At minimum, the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) can be acquired with one unweighted diffusion image and at least 3 weighted diffusion images acquired with gradient directions aligned along the x, y, z planes. In practice, this acquisition is extended to at least 50 images, where the bulk of the measurements are simply repetitions that are used to average away the noise.
We are proposing to replace the excessive number of averages of the conventional prostate diffusion sequence, with variable gradient directions which would enable the measurement of FA in addition to ADC.
Top: The clinical gold standard repeats the measurement N times to improve the SNR through signal averaging, this approach can be used to calculate the ADC.
Bottom: We propose varying diffusion directions instead of repeated averages, this would enable the calculation of ADC and FA. Any loss of SNR can be overcome with MP-PCA.
Sample of diffusion weighted images and the calculated b=1500 image on a patient with a 4+3 peripheral zone lesion acquired with a MAGNETOM Siemens 3.0T Prisma system with and without MP-PCA denoising.
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