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©The Author(s) 2016. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging in cancer: Reported apparent diffusion coefficients, in-vitro and in-vivo reproducibility
Maysam M Jafar, Arman Parsai, Barts Cancer Institute, Queen Mary University of London, London E1 2AD, United Kingdom
Maysam M Jafar, Marc E Miquel, Clinical Physics, Barts Health NHS Trust, West Smithfield, London EC1A 7BE, United Kingdom
Arman Parsai, Radiology, Barts Health NHS Trust, West Smithfield, London EC1A 7BE, United Kingdom
Marc E Miquel, William Harvey Research Institute, Queen Mary University of London, London EC1M 6BQ, United Kingdom
Author contributions: All authors equally contributed to this paper with conception and design of the study, literature review and analysis, drafting and critical revision and editing, and final approval of the final version.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflicts of interest for this paper.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Maysam M Jafar, PhD, Clinical Physics, Barts Health NHS Trust, West Smithfield, London EC1A 7BE, United Kingdom. maysam.jafar@nhs.net
Telephone: +44-203-7658803 Fax: +44-203-4655785
Received: August 21, 2015
Peer-review started: August 24, 2015
First decision: September 30, 2015
Revised: November 10, 2015
Accepted: December 7, 2015
Article in press: December 8, 2015
Published online: January 28, 2016
Peer-review started: August 24, 2015
First decision: September 30, 2015
Revised: November 10, 2015
Accepted: December 7, 2015
Article in press: December 8, 2015
Published online: January 28, 2016
Core Tip
Core tip: Diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging was highlighted as a potential cancer imaging biomarker by a team of experts in a report published in 2009. We review the variability of published diffusion values in the major extra-cranial organs and focus on the validation literature, both in vivo and in vitro. A total of 115 studies were selected including for liver parenchyma, kidney, pancreatic body, spleen, gallbladder, prostate, uterus (endometrium, myometrium, cervix) and breast. We also look in detail at the published repeatability and reproducibility studies, both in vivo and in phantoms. A series of recommendations based on our findings are given at the end of this review.