An investigation into the derangement of the linear relationship between 1/T1 and 1/H2O in brain tumours

Quantitative MRI was applied to assess T1 and water content (H2O) in brain tumors. 1/T1 and 1/H2O are linearly related in healthy WM and GM. Here, we explore deviations from this linear relationship in the tumor regions in 3 glioblastoma patients. Linear regression between 1/T1 and 1/H2O was performed in the healthy brain in the contralateral hemisphere and the obtained values were used to calculate predicted 1/H2O maps for the whole brain. Difference maps between predicted and true 1/H2O were calculated. Further, the importance of robust bias field correction techniques is demonstrated here by comparing two bias field correction approaches.