Inter-and intra-rater reliability of diffusion tensor imaging parameters in the normal pediatric spinal cord

• 作者: Devon Middleton Feroze B Mohamed John P Gaughan MJ Mulcahey Nadia Barakat Pallav Shah Scott H Faro
• 来源期刊: 世界放射学杂志：英文版（电子版）
• 学科: 医学
• 关键词: Diffusion TENSOR imaging REPRODUCIBILITY Reliabili
• 年，卷（期）: 2015,（9）
• 页码范围: 279-285
• 页数: 7页
• 分类号: R445.2

摘要

AIM: To assess inter- and intra-rater reliability(agreement) between two region of interest(ROI) methods in pediatric spinal cord diffusion tensor imaging(DTI). METHODS: Inner-Field-of-View DTI data previously acquired from ten pediatric healthy subjects(mean age = 12.10 years) was used to assess for reliability. ROIs were drawn by two neuroradiologists on each subject data twice within a 3-mo interval. ROIs were placed on axial B0 maps along the cervical spine using free-hand and fixed-size ROIs. Agreement analyses for fractional anisotropy(FA), axial diffusivity, radial diffusivity and mean diffusivity were performed using intra-class-correlation(ICC) and Cronbach’s alpha statistical methods.RESULTS: Inter- and intra-rater agreement between the two ROI methods showed moderate(ICC = 0.5) to strong(ICC = 0.84). There were significant differences between raters in the number of pixels selected using free-hand ROIs(P < 0.05). However, no significant differences were observed in DTI parameter values. FA showed highest variability in ICC values(0.10-0.87). Cronbach’s alpha showed moderate-high values for raters and ROI methods. CONCLUSION: The study showed that high reproducibility in spinal cord DTI can be achieved, and demonstrated the importance of setting detailed methodology for post-processing DTI data, specifically the placement of ROIs.