Abstract
Objective: The main goal of this study is to determine which parameters [e.g. clinical biomarkers, demographics and image-markers using 4D (3D + b-value) diffusion-weighted MRI (DW-MRI)] are more correlated with transplanted kidney status in patients who have undergone kidney transplantation, and can be used for early assessment of acute renal rejection.Methods:The study included 16 patients with stable graft function and 37 patients with acute rejection (AR), determined by renal biopsy post-transplantation. 3D DW-MRI of each allograft had been acquired using a series of b-values 50 and 100–1000 in steps of 100 smm–2. The kidney was automatically segmented and co-aligned across series for motion correction using geometric deformable models. Volume-averaged apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) at each b-value were calculated. All possible subsets of ADC were used, along with patient age, sex, serum plasma creatinine (SPCr) and creatinine clearance (CrCl), as predictors in 211 logistic regression models w...

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