Reproducibility of dynamic contrast enhanced MRI derived transfer coefficient K(trans) in lung cancer

Dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) is a useful method to monitor therapy assessment in malignancies but must be reliable and comparable for successful clinical use. The aim of this study was to evaluate the inter- and intrarater reproducibility of DCE-MRI in lung cancer. At this IRB approved single centre study 40 patients with lung cancer underwent up to 5 sequential DCE-MRI examinations. DCE-MRI were performed using a 3.0T system. The volume transfer constant K(trans) was assessed by three readers using the two-compartment Tofts model. Inter- and intrarater reliability and agreement was calculated by wCV, ICC and their 95% confident intervals. DCE-MRI allowed a quantitative measurement of K(trans) in 107 tumors where 91 were primary carcinomas or intrapulmonary metastases and 16 were extrapulmonary metastases. K(trans) showed moderate to good interrater reliability in overall measurements (ICC 0.716–0.841; wCV 30.3–38.4%). K(trans) in pulmonary lesions ≥ 3 cm showed a good to excellent reliability (ICC 0.773–0.907; wCV 23.0–29.4%) compared to pulmonary lesions < 3 cm showing a moderate to good reliability (ICC 0.710–0.889; wCV 31.6–48.7%). K(trans) in intrapulmonary lesions showed a good reliability (ICC 0.761–0.873; wCV 28.9–37.5%) compared to extrapulmonary lesions with a poor to moderate reliability (ICC 0.018–0.680; wCV 28.1–51.8%). The overall intrarater agreement was moderate to good (ICC 0.607–0.795; wCV 24.6–30.4%). With K(trans), DCE MRI offers a reliable quantitative biomarker for early non-invasive therapy assessment in lung cancer patients, but with a coefficient of variation of up to 48.7% in smaller lung lesions.