关键词: 磁共振成像；定量磁敏感成像；脑；皮层下灰质核团；组内相关系数；可重复性；可信度

Abstract: Objective To investigate the intra- and inter-scanner reproducibility of quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) of cerebral subcortical nuclei in healthy adults. Methods QSM was performed in 21 healthy adults on two different 3.0T MR scanners, and the region of interest (ROI) method was used to measure the magnetic susceptibility value of the left subcortical nuclei (the head of the caudate, putamen, globus pallidus, thalamus, substantia nigra and red nucleus). The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and Bland-Altman method were used to evaluate the inter-scanner and intra-scanner reliability. Results The ICCs of the susceptibility value ranged from 0.90 to 0.99 for all the subcortical gray nuclei except for the head of the caudate nucleus measured on the same MR scanner by the same observer. Bland-Altman analysis revealed that the points with susceptibility differences for all the subcortical gray nuclei except for substantia nigra located in the 95% CI of limits of agreement for the same MR scanner. The ICCs of the susceptibility value for the inter-scanner was 0.49 (0.08-0.75) for the head of the caudate nuleus, 0.80 (0.57-0.91) for the putamen, 0.77 (0.51-0.90) for the globus pallidus, 0.78 (0.54-0.91) for the thalamus, 0.80 (0.56-0.91) for the substantia nigra and 0.93 (0.83-0.97) for the red nucleus. The points with susceptibility difference (95.2%,20/21) located in the 95% CI of limits of agreement for the putamen and the thalamus measured on two different MR scanners. Conclusions The intra-scanner reproducibility of QSM of the subcortical gray nuclei is superior to the inter-scanner reproducibility in healthy adults.

Key words: magnetic resonance imaging; quantitative susceptibility mapping; brain; subcortical nucleus; intraclass correlation coefficient; reproducibility; reliability