Comparison of the reproducibility of 2D and 3D amide proton transfer weighted imaging in intracranial rat gliomas at 3 T

Magnetic resonance-based amide proton transfer weighted (APTw) imaging is one subset of the chemical exchange saturation transfer (CEST) imaging techniques and could provide a potential novel tool of tumor detection and characterization. The purpose of this study was to compare the reproducibility of APTw imaging with two-dimensional (2D) and three-dimensional (3D) techniques in rat intracranial gliomas. Thirty-two Sprague–Dawley (SD) male rats bearing intracranial C6 glioma underwent 2D and 3D APTw imaging twice with a 3 T scanner, respectively. Paired t test was used to compare the difference of magnetization transfer ratio asymmetry (MTRasym) values obtained from 2D and 3D APTw images with respect to tumor and the contralateral normal-appearing brain tissue. The reproducibility of MTRasym measurement values was evaluated using Bland–Altman plot. Our results showed that the reproducibility of MTRasym measurement values from 3D APTw imaging is superior to 2D APTw technique. Therefore, 3D APTw imaging for the brain tumor would be recommended to use in clinical practice with a clinically relevant time frame and research works considering the good reproducibility compared to 2D APTw imaging.