Emerging quantitative MRI methods are increasingly used for non-invasive diagnosis, staging and treatment monitoring in both clinical care and clinical trials. However, the lack of viable MRI phantoms that mimic the combination of water, fat, iron and fibrosis experienced in disease states is a major barrier to the development of new quantitative MRI biomarkers, as well as effective quality assurance in clinical environments. Such phantoms are also needed for quality assurance, calibration and qualification of MRI scanners for use in multicenter drug development trials. We work to develop and validate phantoms suitable for quantifying water, fat, iron and diffusion, often performing multi-vendor MR studies with other institutions.
Selected Publications
- Zhao R, Hernando D, Harris DT, Hinshaw LA, Li K, Ananthakrishnan L, Bashir MR, Duan X, Aliyari Ghasabeh M, Kamel IR, Lowry C, Mahesh M, Marin D, Miller J, Pickhardt PJ, Shafer J, Yokoo T, Brittain JH, and Reeder SB. Multi-Site Multi-Vendor Validation of a Quantitative MRI and CT Compatible Fat Phantom. Medical Physics, 2021. DOI
- Zhao R, Hamilton G, Brittain JH, Reeder SB and Hernando D. Design and evaluation of quantitative MRI phantoms to mimic the simultaneous presence of fat, iron, and fibrosis in the liver. Magnetic resonance in medicine. 2020 August DOI PMID
- Hernando D, Sharma S, Aliyari Ghasabeh M, Alvis B, Arora S, Hamilton G, Pan L, Shaffer J, Sofue K, Szeverenyi N, Welch E, Yuan Q, Bashir M, Kamel I, Rice M, Sirlin C, Yokoo T and Reeder S. Multisite, multivendor validation of the accuracy and reproducibility of proton-density fat-fraction quantification at 1.5T and 3T using a fat–water phantom. Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. 2017 apr;77(4):1516-1524. DOI PMID
- Wang X, Reeder S and Hernando D. An acetone-based phantom for quantitative diffusion MRI. Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging. 2017 apr;46(6):1683-1692. DOI PMID