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Development and validation of an intrinsic landmark-based gating protocol applicable for functional and molecular ultrasound imaging

  • Molecular Imaging
  • Published:
European Radiology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objectives

To implement a retrospective intrinsic landmark-based (ILB) gating protocol for contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) and to compare its efficiency to non-gated, manually gated and extrinsically gated CEUS.

Methods

CEUS of the liver was performed in healthy mice (n = 5) and in NEMO knockout mice with dysplastic livers (n = 5). In healthy animals, first-pass kinetics of non-specific microbubbles was recorded. Knockout mice were analysed regarding retention of VEGFR2-specific microbubbles. For retrospective gating, a landmark which showed respiratory movement was encircled as a region of interest (ROI). During inspiration, the signal intensity within the ROI altered, which served as gating signal. To evaluate the accuracy, non-gated, extrinsically gated and ILB-gated time-intensity curves were created. For each curve, descriptive parameters were calculated and compared to the gold standard (manual frame-by-frame gating).

Results

No significant differences in the variation of ILB- and extrinsically gated time-intensity curves from the gold standard were observed. Non-gated data showed significantly higher variations. Also the variation of molecular ultrasound data was significantly lower for ILB-gated compared to non-gated data.

Conclusion

ILB gating is a robust and easy method to improve data accuracy in functional and molecular ultrasound liver imaging. This technique can presumably be translated to contrast-enhanced ultrasound examinations in humans.

Key Points

• Quantitative analysis of the uptake of contrast agents during ultrasound is complex.

• Intrinsic landmark-based gating (ILB) offers a simple implementable method for motion correction.

• Results using ILB-gating are comparable to extrinsic gating using external biomonitoring devices.

• Functional and molecular imaging of mobile organs will benefit from ILB gating.

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Abbreviations

ROI:

Region of interest

CEUS:

Contrast-enhanced ultrasound

ILB-gating:

Intrinsic landmark-based gating

AUC:

Area under the curve

VEGFR2:

Vascular endothelial growth factor receptor type 2

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF), project “Virtual Liver Consortium”, number 0315743 and by the German Research Foundation (DFG) SFB TRR57.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Experimental Molecular Imaging, RWTH-Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Christoph Grouls, Jessica Bzyl, Fabian Kiessling & Moritz Palmowski

  2. Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Radiology, RWTH-Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Christoph Grouls, Tobias Penzkofer, Christiane Kuhl & Moritz Palmowski

  3. Medical Clinic II, University Hospital, RWTH-Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Max Hatting & Christian Trautwein

  4. Bracco Suisse SA, Geneva, Switzerland

    Isabelle Tardy

  5. Department of Diagnostic and Interventional Neuroradiology, RWTH-Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Georg Mühlenbruch

  6. Department of Nuclear Medicine, RWTH-Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Florian F. Behrendt & Moritz Palmowski

Authors
  1. Christoph Grouls
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  2. Max Hatting
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  3. Isabelle Tardy
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  9. Christiane Kuhl
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  10. Fabian Kiessling
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  11. Moritz Palmowski
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Correspondence to Moritz Palmowski.

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Grouls, C., Hatting, M., Tardy, I. et al. Development and validation of an intrinsic landmark-based gating protocol applicable for functional and molecular ultrasound imaging. Eur Radiol 22, 1789–1796 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-012-2429-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00330-012-2429-y

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