A multi-software and multi-vendor cross-comparison study of intracranial 4D flow MRI data analysis

Motivation: There is a lack of comparative studies analyzing the interchangeability of intracranial 4D flow MRI data. Goal(s): To validate the consistency of 4D flow data acquired from different vendors and post-processed by different software by comparing measurements of healthy individuals' cerebral arteries. Approach: Eight healthy volunteers were each examined on three MRI scanners (vida, uMR880, Architect). Flow of nine major cerebral arteries were evaluated with three software (CVI 42, TS FLOW, and MASS). Results: The flow measurements of major arterial segments from different scanners showed good agreement. CVI 42 and MASS were the only software programs showing agreement for arterial flow. Impact: It reveals that flow measurements of intracranial arteries from different scanners showed better agreement than that processed by different software. This may set a reference to compare results by different pipelines and guide the multi-center study design of 4D flow.