Reproducibility and reliability of pancreatic pharmacokinetic parameters derived from dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging.

Background: Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) with an extended Tofts linear (ETL) model for tissue and tumor evaluation has been established, but its effectiveness in evaluating the pancreas remains uncertain.

Purpose: To understand the pharmacokinetics of normal pancreas and serve as a reference for future studies of pancreatic diseases.

Material and methods: Pancreatic pharmacokinetic parameters of 54 volunteers were calculated using DCE-MRI with the ETL model. First, intra- and inter-observer reliability was assessed through the use of the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) and coefficient of variation (CoV). Second, a subgroup analysis of the pancreatic DCE-MRI pharmacokinetic parameters was carried out by dividing the 54 individuals into three groups based on the pancreatic region, three groups based on age, and two groups based on sex.

Results: There was excellent agreement and low variability of intra- and inter-observer to pancreatic DCE-MRI pharmacokinetic parameters. The intra- and inter-observer ICCs of K^trans, k_ep, v_e, and v_p were 0.971, 0.952, 0.959, 0.944 and 0.947, 0.911, 0.978, 0.917, respectively. The intra- and inter-observer CoVs of K^trans, k_ep, v_e, v_p were 9.98%, 5.99%, 6.47%, 4.76% and 10.15%, 5.22%, 6.28%, 5.40%, respectively. Only the pancreatic v_e of the older group was higher than that of the young and middle-aged groups (P = 0.042, 0.001), and the v_p of the pancreatic head was higher than that of the pancreatic body and tail (P = 0.014, 0.043).

Conclusion: The application of DCE-MRI with an ETL model provides a reliable, robust, and reproducible means of non-invasively quantifying pancreatic pharmacokinetic parameters.