# Multi-Vendor Multi-Site Novel Accelerated MRI Relaxometry

> **NIH NIH R01** · CLEVELAND CLINIC LERNER COM-CWRU · 2020 · $698,092

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
MRI relaxometry has been applied to improve early diagnosis and prognosis for a wide range of diseases.
However, one typical obstacle of integrating quantitative MRI into clinical protocols is the long acquisition time.
Furthermore, it is an essential but sometimes overlooked step to investigate quantification variability across sites
and MR systems in order to validate MR imaging biomarkers and to apply the measures in large scale multi-
vendor multi-site trials. Specifically, there is a lack of systematic evaluation of inter-vendor inter-site variability of
T1ρ imaging, even though it has been widely applied in neural-, liver-, cardiac-, oncology-, and musculoskeletal-
(MSK) imaging. Neither commercial T1ρ phantoms are available. The proposed study is addressing these
significant gaps and aims to develop and cross-validate novel fast MR T1ρ and T2 imaging methods on MR
systems from multiple vendors, followed by feasibility evaluation in patients at risk for osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis
(OA) affects over 27 million people in the US. No disease modifying OA drugs (DMOADs) are available, despite
extensive effort. One hurdle for developing DMOADs is the lack of sensitive and reliable non-invasive biomarkers
that can detect treatment effects over a short time window. Such biomarkers would also benefit clinical practice
by identifying patients at risk for developing OA or at an early disease stage, when behavior modification
strategies are shown to be most effective in slowing down the disease progression. There is a pressing, unmet
clinical need for robust assessment of early degeneration, which is critical to support a paradigm shift of OA
management from palliation of late disease towards prevention through early diagnosis and early
treatment/interventions. Cartilage MR T1ρ and T2 measures have been shown to be promising imaging
biomarkers for early cartilage degeneration. However, many challenges remain to clinically applying these
techniques, including lack of standardized acquisition and analysis methods, long acquisition time, and
uncertainty of variations between different MR systems. In this study, we will develop novel accelerated T1ρ and
T2 imaging methods, implement these techniques on MR systems of three major vendors (Siemens, GE and
Philips), systematically evaluate inter-vendor inter-site variation of these measures using dedicated T1ρ and T2
calibration phantoms (to be developed in this study) and traveling subjects, investigate the source(s) and
magnitude of the differences, explore methods to mitigate the variability, and demonstrate the feasibility of the
newly developed acceleration techniques to quantify cartilage degeneration longitudinally in a multi-vendor
setting. Successful implementation of the proposed study will provide a full package of T1ρ and T2 imaging that
will be ready for dissemination and will help to pave the way towards large-scale multi-vendor, multi-site trials
using T1ρ and T2 imag...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9983945
- **Project number:** 1R01AR077452-01
- **Recipient organization:** CLEVELAND CLINIC LERNER COM-CWRU
- **Principal Investigator:** Xiaojuan Li
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $698,092
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2020-05-01 → 2025-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9983945

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9983945, Multi-Vendor Multi-Site Novel Accelerated MRI Relaxometry (1R01AR077452-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9983945. Licensed CC0.

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