Impeded diffusion fraction for quantitative imaging diagnostic assay

A computer-implemented method of analyzing diffusion weighted images, the computer-implemented method comprising:

• receiving, at one or more processors, diffusion weighted image (DWI) data corresponding to a sample of an imaged tissue and identifying within the DWI data a region of interest comprising one or more voxels, the region of interest spanning at least partially a tissue region within the sample;
• applying, using the one or more processors, the DWI data corresponding to the region of interest to an impeded diffusion fraction model and, from applying the impeded diffusion fraction model, determining an impeded diffusion fraction for each of the one or more voxels in the region of interest, the impeded diffusion fraction model being a multi-compartment model of water coordination by macromolecules agnostic to tissue compartment origin and applicable across multiple tissue compartments using a fixed rate for free diffusion and order of magnitude scaling constraints for vascular diffusion and coordinated diffusion;
• from the impeded diffusion fraction of the one or more voxels, identifying the presence and/or severity of a pathology in the imaged tissue;
• and
• generating, using the one or more processors and the identified presence and/or severity of the pathology in the imaged tissue, a pathology determination image indicating a location of the presence and/or the severity of the pathology within the region of interest.