Evidence of Tri-Exponential Decay for Liver Intravoxel Incoherent Motion MRI: A Review of Published Results and Limitations

Diffusion weighted imaging (DWI) and intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) have been explored to assess liver tumors and diffused liver diseases. IVIM reflects the microscopic translational motions that occur in voxels in magnetic resonance (MR) DWI. In biologic tissues, molecular diffusion of water and microcirculation of blood in the capillary network can be assessed using IVIM DWI. The most commonly applied model to describe the DWI signal is a bi-exponential model, with a slow compartment of diffusion linked to pure molecular diffusion (represented by the coefficient D(slow)), and a fast compartment of diffusion, related to microperfusion (represented by the coefficient D(fast)). However, high variance in D(fast) estimates has been consistently shown in literature for liver IVIM, restricting its application in clinical practice. This variation could be explained by the presence of another very fast compartment of diffusion in the liver. Therefore, a tri-exponential model would be more suitable to describe the DWI signal. This article reviews the published evidence of the existence of this additional very fast diffusion compartment and discusses the performance and limitations of the tri-exponential model for liver IVIM in current clinical settings.