Assessment of Kidney Function Using Dynamic Contrast Enhanced MRI Techniques

Graft failure of kidneys after transplantation is most often the consequence of the acute rejection. Hence, early detection of the kidney rejection is important for the treatment of renal diseases. In this chapter, authors introduce a new automatic approach to classify normal kidney function from kidney rejection using dynamic contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI). The kidney has three regions named the cortex, medulla, and pelvis. In their experiment, they use the medulla region because it has specific responses to DCE-MRI that are helpful to identify kidney rejection. In the authors’ process they segment the kidney using the level sets method. They then employ several classification methods such as the Euclidean distance, Mahalanobis distance, and least square support vector machines (LS-SVM). The authors’preliminary results are very encouraging and reproducibility of the results was achieved for 55 clinical data sets. The classification accuracy, diagnostic sensitivity, and diagnostic specificity are 84%, 75%, and 96%, respectively.