Abstract
The purposes of this study are to establish oxygen extraction fraction (OEF) measurements using quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and to compare QSM-OEF data with the gold standard (15)O positron emission tomography (PET). Twenty-six patients with chronic unilateral internal carotid artery or middle cerebral artery stenosis or occlusion, and 15 normal subjects were included. MRI scans were conducted using a 3.0 Tesla scanner with a three-dimensional spoiled gradient recalled sequence. QSM images were created using the morphology-enabled dipole inversion method, and OEF maps were generated from QSM images using extraction of venous susceptibility induced by deoxygenated hemoglobin. Significant correlation of relative OEF ratio to contra-lateral hemisphere between QSM-OEF and PET-OEF was observed (r = 0.62, p < 0.001). The local (intra-section) correlation was also significant (r = 0.52, p < 0.001) in patients with increased PET-OEF. The sensitivity and specificity of OEF increase in QSM was 0.63 (5/8) and 0.89 (16/18), respectively, in comparison with PET. In conclusion, good correlation was achieved between QSM-OEF and PET-OEF in the identification of elevated OEF in affected hemispheres of patients with unilateral chronic steno-occlusive disease.