Assessment of the Tracer Delay Effect in Whole-brain Computed Tomography Perfusion: Results in Patients Without Known Neuroanatomic Abnormalities

Objective: Whole-brain computed tomography perfusion (CTP) data sets generated by tracer delay-insensitive singular value decomposition plus (SVD+) and standard singular value decomposition (sSVD) deconvolution algorithms were evaluated to quantify relatedness and discrepancies in CTP results.

Methods: Twenty females with symmetrical hemispheric CTP maps indicative of brain tissue without apparent abnormalities were studied. Tissue-specific CTP values were analyzed.

Results: Standard SVD values were higher than SVD+ for cerebral blood flow. Other CTP values had minimal differences across brain regions. All simple linear regression models were statistically significant (P < 0.05) except for cerebral blood flow in white matter (P = 0.06). Cerebral blood volume had a good model fit, and mean transit time, a poor fit.

Conclusions: Corresponding fitted CTP values for sSVD and SVD+ based on regression equations for brain-tissue types are presented. Additional research is required to compare SVD+ and sSVD in disease states when significant hemodynamic brain alterations are present.