Mini-Review of Studies Reporting the Repeatability and Reproducibility of Diffusion Tensor Imaging

Jeong Pyo Seo; Young Hyeon Kwon; Sung Ho Jang

doi:10.13104/imri.2019.23.1.26

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Seo, Kwon, and Jang: Mini-Review of Studies Reporting the Repeatability and Reproducibility of Diffusion Tensor Imaging

Review Article

iMRI 2019;23(1):26-33.

Published online: 10 January 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.13104/imri.2019.23.1.26

Mini-Review of Studies Reporting the Repeatability and Reproducibility of Diffusion Tensor Imaging

Jeong Pyo Seo, Young Hyeon Kwon, Sung Ho Jang

Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University, Daegu, Korea

Correspondence to: Sung Ho Jang, M.D. Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University, 317-1, Daemyung-dong, Nam-gu, Daegu 42415, Korea. Tel. +82-53-620-3269 Fax. +82-53-620-3269 E-mail: strokerehab@hanmail.net

Received 31 December 2018 Revised 23 January 2019 Accepted 1 February 2019

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Purpose

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data must be analyzed by an analyzer after data processing. Hence, the analyzed data of DTI might depend on the analyzer, making it a major limitation. This paper reviewed previous DTI studies reporting the repeatability and reproducibility of data from the corticospinal tract (CST), one of the most actively researched neural tracts on this topic.

Materials and Methods

Relevant studies published between January 1990 and December 2018 were identified by searching PubMed, Google Scholar, and MEDLINE electronic databases using the following keywords: DTI, diffusion tensor tractography, reliability, repeatability, reproducibility, and CST. As a result, 15 studies were selected.

Results

Measurements of the CSTs using region of interest methods on 2-dimensional DTI images generally showed excellent repeatability and reproducibility of more than 0.8 but high variability (0.29 to 1.00) between studies. In contrast, measurements of the CST using the 3-dimensional DTT method not only revealed excellent repeatability and reproducibility of more than 0.9 but also low variability (repeatability, 0.88 to 1.00; reproducibility, 0.82 to 0.99) between studies.

Conclusion

Both 2-dimensional DTI and 3-dimensional DTT methods appeared to be reliable for measuring the CST but the 3-dimensional DTT method appeared to be more reliable.

Keywords: Diffusion tensor imaging, Diffusion tensor tractography, Corticospinal tract, Repeatability, Reproducibility

References

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Fig. 1.

Measurement of parameters using the region of interest on diffusion tensor imaging (a) and using the reconstructed corticospinal tract on diffusion tensor tractography (b).

Fig. 2.

(a) First and second regions of interest (ROIs: roundly drawn area) are applied to the corticospinal areas in the upper pons and mid-pons, respectively. (b) The reconstructed corticospinal tracts that are commonly passed through the first and second ROIS.

Fig. 3.

Flow diagram of the approach used to select the studies to be reviewed.

Table 1.

Repeatability and Reproducibility of Diffusion Tensor Imaging and Diffusion Tensor Tractography of the Corticospinal Tract

	Authors	Publication year	Subjects no.	Statistical analysis	Repeatability	Reproducibility	Region of interest
DTI	Bonekamp et al. (11)	2007	40 healthy children	ICC	Intra-raters	Inter-raters	1. Cerebral peduncle
					1. CP	1. CP	2. Posterior limb of internal
					FA – ICC: 0.96	FA – ICC: 0.90	capsule
					ADC – ICC: 0.98	ADC – ICC: 0.92	3. Superior corona radiata
					2. PLIC	2. PLIC
					FA – ICC: 0.97	FA – ICC: 0.91
					ADC – ICC: 0.99	ADC – ICC: 0.98
					3. SCR	3. SCR
					FA – ICC: 0.99	FA – ICC: 0.97
					ADC – ICC: 1.00	ADC – ICC: 0.99
						Inter-scans
						1. CP
						FA – ICC: 0.81
						ADC – ICC: 0.86
						2. PLIC
						FA – ICC: 0.66
						ADC – ICC: 0.82
						3. SCR
						FA – ICC: 0.79
						ADC – ICC: 0.93
	Borich et al. (14)	2012	10 chronic stroke patients 10 healthy adults	ICC	Intra-raters FA – ICC: 0.94	Inter-raters FA – ICC: 0.71	Posterior limb of internal capsule
	Hakulinen et al. (15)	2012	30 healthy adults	ICC	Circular ROI 1. Pons		1. Pons
					FA – ICC: 0.74		2. Cerebral peduncle
					ADC – ICC: 0.83		3. Posterior limb of internal
					2. CP		capsule
					FA – ICC: 0.74		4. Corona radiate
					ADC – ICC: 0.19		5. Centrum semiovale
					3. PLIC
					FA – ICC: 0.90
					ADC – ICC: 0.76
					4. CR
					FA – ICC: 0.84
					ADC – ICC: 0.76
					Freehand ROI
					1. Pons
					FA – ICC: 0.63
					ADC – ICC: 0.70
					2. CP
					FA – ICC: 0.74
					ADC – ICC: 0.29
					3. PLIC
					FA – ICC: 0.66
					ADC – ICC: 0.78
					4. CR
					FA – ICC: 0.86
					ADC – ICC: 0.86
	Acheson et al. (22)	2017	12 healthy adults 89 children and adolescents	ICC		Inter-raters 1. IC FA – ICC: 0.72	1. Posterior limb of interna capsule 2. Corona radiate
						2. CR
						FA – ICC: 0.87
DTT	Stieltjes et	2001	6 healthy adults	Kappa	FA threshold	FA threshold
	al. (10)
					0.25 – k: 1.00	0.25 – k: 0.92
					0.35 – k: 1.00	0.35 – k: 0.97
	Wakana et	2007	10 healthy adults	Kappa	AND – k: 0.94	AND – k: 0.80
	al. (12)				CUT – k: 0.95	CUT – k: 0.80
	Danielian et	2010	10 healthy adults	ICC	Intra-raters	Inter-raters
	al. (13)				FA – ICC: 0.99	FA – ICC: 0.99
					MD – ICC: 0.99	MD – ICC: 0.99
					TV – ICC: 0.93	TV – ICC: 0.86
						Inter-scans
						FA – ICC: 0.95
						MD – ICC: 0.83
						TV – ICC: 0.82
	Lee et al. (16)	2012	12 patients with HI-BI	ICC	Intra-raters	Inter-scans
			12 healthy adults
					FA, ADC, and TV – ICC:	FA, ADC, and TV
					0.92 – 0.99	ICC: 0.85 – 0.99
	Kristo et al.	2013	17 healthy subjects	Coefficients		Inter-scans
	(18)			of variation		FA – CV: 2.08%
				(CV)		MD – CV: 2.32%
						TV – CV: 12.62%
	Jang et al.	2013	54 stroke patient	ICC	Intra-raters	Inter-raters
	(17)
					FA, ADC, and TV – ICC:	FA, ADC, and TV -
					0.88 – 0.99	ICC: 0.87 – 0.99
	Kwon et al.	2014	76 healthy subjects	chi-squared		Turning angles
	(19)			test		45°: 98.7%
						60°: 98.7%
						75°: 98.0%
	Paldino et al.	2014	30 pediatric patients	ICC		Inter-raters
	(20)					FA – ICC: 0.99
						MD – ICC: 0.97
	Rijken et al.	2015	7 healthy subjects	ICC	Intra-raters	Inter-raters
	(21)		58 patients with	F	FA, ADC, and TV – ICC:	FA, ADC, and TV –:
			craniosynostosis		0.93	ICC: 0.94
			syndromes
	Ius et al. (23)	2017	37 patients with	ICC		Inter-raters
			low-grade glioma			TV – ICC: 0.99
	Rosenstock	2017	30 patients with	ICC		Distance between
	et al. (24)		high grade glioma			tumor and CST
						– ICC: 0.99
						FA – ICC: 0.94
						ADC – ICC: 0.96
						TV – ICC: 0.90

ADC = apparent diffusion coefficient; DTI = diffusion tensor imaging; DTT = diffusion tensor tractography; FA = fractional anisotropy; ICC = intraclass correlation coefficient; MD = mean diffusivity; TV = tract volume

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