Clinical assessment of whole-body MIPs as a survey tool in soft tissue disease with noise-corrected exponentially weighted DWI (niceDWI).

Motivation: Maximum intensity projections (MIPs) generated from niceDWI could be beneficial as a survey tool in patients with soft-tissue disease, helping to save time in clinical reporting. Goal(s): Perform a systematic clinical comparison of MIPs generated using niceDWI with MIPs generated using clinical DWI (clinDWI). Approach: An experienced reader of whole-body MRI scored niceDWI and clinDWI MIPs in 20 patients with metastatic melanoma for SNR, CNR, artifacts, overall quality, and presence of disease in soft-tissues. ROC curves were plotted to assess disease detection. Results: Image quality metrics were significantly worse in niceDWI, however there was no difference in ROC analysis of disease detection. Impact: Whole-body MIPs using niceDWI did not improve disease detection in patients with soft-tissue disease, despite improved interstation homogeneity. Motion of soft-tissue lesions may limit SNR of niceDWI thus it may have higher clinical impact in surveillance of bone disease.