Synthetic high-b-value MUSE DWI in preoperative differentiation of high-grade glioma from low-grade glioma

Motivation: High-b-value diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) with b value = 3000 s/mm2 are independent predictors of overall survival. Goal(s): To explore the feasibility of synthetic high-b-value DWI and ADC values in diagnosis of glioma using actually scanned ones as standard reference. Approach: To assess scanned and synthetic multiple high-b-value MUSE DWI and ADC of 5 patients with low-grade glioma and 3 patients with high-grade glioma. Results: All synthetic high-b-value DWIs had superior image quality and diagnostic efficacy of glioma to all scanned DWIs. The scanned and synthetic ADC were significantly different between different b values. Impact: Synthetic high-b-value MUSE DWI can provide better image quality and diagnostic efficiency of grading glioma without consuming extra scan time, encouraging us to promote the utility of setting up synthetic high-b-value MUSE DWI as routine.