Measuring glomerular blood transfer rate in kidney using diffusion-weighted arterial spin labeling

Abstract

Imaging methods for the non-invasive measurement of renal function, such as glomerular filtration rate (GFR), are promising. In this study, we propose a renal perfusion kinetic model to estimate the blood transfer rate constant (kG) in glomerulus with the multi-slice multi-delay diffusion-weighted arterial spin labeling sequence. Mean cortical kG values with a caffeine challenge were higher than those with no caffeine challenge, consistent with previous studies with GFR. The current study is promising in that it shows a potential availability of kG as a non-invasive quantitative measure of renal function.