A new discrete dipole kernel for quantitative susceptibility mapping.

PURPOSE: Most approaches for quantitative susceptibility mapping (QSM) are based on a forward model approximation that employs a continuous Fourier transform operator to solve a differential equation system. Such formulation, however, is prone to high-frequency aliasing. The aim of this study was to reduce such errors using an alternative dipole kernel formulation based on the discrete Fourier transform and discrete operators. METHODS: The impact of such an approach on forward model calculation and susceptibility inversion was evaluated in contrast to the continuous formulation both with synthetic phantoms and in vivo MRI data. RESULTS: The discrete kernel demonstrated systematically better fits to analytic field solutions, and showed less over-oscillations and aliasing artifacts while preserving low- and medium-frequency responses relative to those obtained with the continuous kernel. In the context of QSM estimation, the use of the proposed discrete kernel resulted in error reduction and increased sharpness. CONCLUSION: This proof-of-concept study demonstrated that discretizing the dipole kernel is advantageous for QSM. The impact on small or narrow structures such as the venous vasculature might by particularly relevant to high-resolution QSM applications with ultra-high field MRI - a topic for future investigations. The proposed dipole kernel has a straightforward implementation to existing QSM routines.

Sensitivity analysis of geometric errors in additive manufacturing medical models.

Additive manufacturing (AM) models are used in medical applications for surgical planning, prosthesis design and teaching. For these applications, the accuracy of the AM models is essential. Unfortunately, this accuracy is compromised due to errors introduced by each of the building steps: image acquisition, segmentation, triangulation, printing and infiltration. However, the contribution of each step to the final error remains unclear. We performed a sensitivity analysis comparing errors obtained from a reference with those obtained modifying parameters of each building step. Our analysis considered global indexes to evaluate the overall error, and local indexes to show how this error is distributed along the surface of the AM models. Our results show that the standard building process tends to overestimate the AM models, i.e. models are larger than the original structures. They also show that the triangulation resolution and the segmentation threshold are critical factors, and that the errors are concentrated at regions with high curvatures. Errors could be reduced choosing better triangulation and printing resolutions, but there is an important need for modifying some of the standard building processes, particularly the segmentation algorithms.