Using digital reference objects to optimize advance reconstruction methods for abdominal DCE MRI in the presence of motion

Motivation: Concern over gadolinium contrast injections for research purposes limits in vivo testing of new imaging methods. An in-silica optimization strategy is needed when developing advanced reconstructions in the setting of free-breathing abdominal DCE MRI. Goal(s): Demonstrate a framework for testing performance of different reconstructions. Approach: A publicly available DRO was used to generate simulated free-breathing abdominal DCE k-space data. Data was then reconstructed using different reconstruction settings for MOCCO and SENSE. Results: This approach allowed head-to-head comparisons of different reconstruction methods as well as comparison with the ground truth data used to generate the DRO. Impact: The proposed testing approach allows researchers to test numerous combinations of acquisitions and reconstructions while having ground truth as a benchmark.