Assessment of highly repeatable Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping Processing Pipelines for Abdominal Applications

Motivation: Quantitative Susceptibility Mapping (QSM) has the potential for abdominal applications in assessing disease conditions, but the performance of different post-processing methods has not been fully evaluated, affecting reliability and clinical applicability. Goal(s): To evaluate various QSM post-processing method combinations for abdominal imaging and determine the most reliable pipeline. Approach: Multiple QSM post-processing method combinations were evaluated for image quality and consistency. Results: VSHARP combined with StarQSM or iterTik demonstrated higher subjective image quality scores, consistency of symmetrical organs, and low variability of ROIs, while PDF_StarQSM also demonstrated promising performance. Impact: Selecting the optimal post-processing method is crucial for enhancing the reliability of abdominal QSM, potentially improving clinical diagnostics and patient outcomes.