New variants of a method of MRI scale standardization

Abstract

One of the major drawbacks of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been the lack of a standard and quantifiable interpretation of image intensities. Unlike in other modalities, such as X-ray computerized tomography, MR images taken for the same patient on the same scanner at different times may appear different from each other due to a variety of scanner-dependent variations and, therefore, the absolute intensity values do not have a fixed meaning. We have devised a two-step method wherein all images (independent of patients and the specific brand of the MR scanner used) can be transformed in such a way that for the same protocol and body region, in the transformed images similar intensities will have similar tissue meaning. Standardized images can be displayed with fixed windows without the need of per-case adjustment. More importantly, extraction of quantitative information about healthy organs or about abnormalities can be considerably simplified. This paper introduces and compares new variants of this standardizing method that can help to overcome some of the problems with the original method.