Efficiency and Accuracy Evaluation of Multiple Diffusion‐Weighted MRI Techniques Across Different Scanners

Background The choice between different diffusion‐weighted imaging (DWI) techniques is difficult as each comes with tradeoffs for efficient clinical routine imaging and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) accuracy. Purpose To quantify signal‐to‐noise‐ratio (SNR) efficiency, ADC accuracy, artifacts, and distortions for different DWI acquisition techniques, coils, and scanners. Study Type Phantom, in vivo intraindividual biomarker accuracy between DWI techniques and independent ratings. Population/Phantoms NIST diffusion phantom. 51 Patients: 40 with prostate cancer and 11 with head‐and‐neck cancer at 1.5 T Field Strength/Sequence Echo planar imaging (EPI): 1.5 T and 3 T Siemens; 3 T Philips. Distortion‐reducing: RESOLVE (1.5 and 3 T Siemens); Turbo Spin Echo (TSE)‐SPLICE (3 T Philips). Small field‐of‐view (FOV): ZoomitPro (1.5 T Siemens); IRIS (3 T Philips). Head‐and‐neck and flexible coils. Assessment SNR Efficiency, geometrical distortions, and susceptibility artifacts were quantified for different b‐values in a phantom. ADC accuracy/agreement was quantified in phantom and for 51 patients. In vivo image quality was independently rated by four experts. Statistical Tests QIBA methodology for accuracy: trueness, repeatability, reproducibility, Bland–Altman 95% Limits‐of‐Agreement (LOA) for ADC. Wilcoxon Signed‐Rank and student tests on P