Abstract
Three different deconvolution techniques for quantifying cerebral blood flow (CBF) from whole brain $T2^{\ast}-weighted$ bolus tracking images were implemented (parametric Fourier transform P-FT, parametric single value decomposition P-SVD and nonparametric single value decomposition NP-SVD). The techniques were tested on 206 regions from 38 hyperacute stroke patients. In the P-FT and P-SVD techniques, the tissue and arterial concentration time curves were fit to a gamma variate function and the resulting CBF values correlated very well $(CBF_{P-FT}\;=\;1.02{\cdot}CBF_{p-SVD},\;r^2\;=\;0.96)$. The NP-SVD CBF values correlated well with the P-FT CBF values only when a sufficient number of time series volumes were acquired to minimize tracer time curve truncation $(CBF_{P-FT}\;=\;0.92{\cdot}CBF_{NP-SVD},\;r^2\;=\;0.88)$. The correlation between the fitted CBV and the unfitted CBV values was also maximized in regions with minimal tracer time curve truncation $(CBV_{fit}\;=\;1.00{\cdot}CBV_{ Unfit},\;^r^2\;=\;0.89)$. When a sufficient number of time series volumes could not be acquired (due to scanner limitations) to avoid tracer time curve truncation, the P-FT and P-SVD techniques gave more reliable estimates of CBF than the NP-SVD technique.