Correction for variations in MRI scanner sensitivity in brain studies with histogram matching

• Published in: Magnetic resonance in medicine Vol. 39; no. 2; p. 322
• Main Authors: Wang, L, Lai, H M, Barker, G J, Miller, D H, Tofts, P S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.02.1998
• Subjects: Algorithms; Brain - anatomy & histology; Brain - pathology; Case-Control Studies; Humans; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted - methods; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Multiple Sclerosis - pathology; Reproducibility of Results
• ISSN: 0740-3194
• DOI: 10.1002/mrm.1910390222

Quantitative comparisons of abnormalities in MRI scans between patients or within patients serially are affected by variations in MR scanner performance. A histogram matching method is proposed to correct for variation in scanner sensitivity. It is demonstrated that this histogram matching method reduced the variation in white matter intensities across normal subjects from 7.5 to 2.5% and provided a method to remove the threshold dependency in lesion volume measurement with global thresholding in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS). The effectiveness of the method was compared with three other possible correction schemes. The histogram matching method was shown to be 2 to 5 times better.