1. Introduction
Gadolinium and biomedical imaging. Gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCA) are routinely used in biomedical imaging. An approximate 40% of all magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sessions in Europe and the United States rely on GBCAs to diagnose, characterize or monitor lesions that would remain otherwise poorly visible [1], [2]. In neuroimaging, contrast-enhanced T1-weighted imaging is the cornerstone modality for the detection and precise delineation of brain glioma and metastases, which cause each year hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide [3], [4]. GBCAs are considered safe, with less than one patient in 100,000 that experiences an adverse reaction [1]. However, the linear sub-category of GCBAs has been withdrawn from European markets in 2017 on the suspicion of abnormal accumulation of gadolinium [5]. Gadolinium has also been identified as a possible trigger of the rare nephrogenic systemic fibrosis disease in patients with renal insufficiency [6]. Macrocyclic GBCAs remain recommended if not systematic in a large number of situations in order to achieve the best diagnosis performance, but recent guidelines suggest to aim for a more parsimonious usage, especially in the case of chronic disease monitoring [7].
Proposed deep learning approach for the synthesis of contrast-enhanced brain images.