Towards a clinical acquisition protocol for VERDICT MRI in brain tumours

Motivation: Multi-compartment models of diffusion MRI can provide important information for the characterisation of brain tumours, but they often require long acquisition protocols that are not feasible in a clinical setting. Goal(s): Our goal is to optimise a clinically feasible protocol to apply the multi-compartment model VERDICT in brain tumours. Approach: Starting from an extensive protocol previously used to scan patients, we compare results obtained from different subsamples of that protocol in simulated and real data. Results: The acquisition can be substantially shortened (about 15% of the initial duration) without significantly decreasing accuracy and maintaining the capability to differentiate tumour types. Impact: We have shown that VERDICT-MRI brain tumour microstructure metrics can be estimated from substantially reduced acquisition protocols than in previous publications while maintaining the capability to differentiate tumour types. This is crucial for the clinical translation of this technique.