CT perfusion phantom

A method of controlling for variability in measurements of healthy tissue blood perfusion during imaging, comprising:

• using a first piece of imaging equipment, measuring at a first time a blood perfusion of contrast material in a healthy tissue in a patient while measuring a blood perfusion of the contrast material in a healthy tissue phantom having a known density curve selected to correspond to the blood perfusion of the healthy tissue to obtain a first phantom perfusion result;
• repeating the measurements at a later time for the patient using a second piece of imaging equipment that uses a same imaging technology and an imaging technology of the first piece of imaging equipment;
• and
• normalizing the results of the measurement of the blood perfusion in the healthy tissue found using the second piece of imaging equipment by using a change, if any, between the first phantom perfusion result and the second phantom perfusion result.

A method of using one of MRI imaging equipment and computed tomography equipment to measure blood perfusion in a patient having a cancerous tissue, comprising:

• measuring a blood perfusion of contrast material in the cancerous tissue and in healthy tissue in the patient at a first examination time using a first piece of imaging equipment, the first piece of imaging equipment comprising one of MRI imaging equipment and computed tomography equipment, to obtain a first cancer/healthy perfusion ratio result;
• measuring a blood perfusion of the contrast material in a healthy tissue phantom at the first examination time using the first piece of imaging equipment, the healthy tissue phantom having a known density curve selected to correspond to the blood perfusion of the healthy tissue to obtain a first phantom perfusion result;
• re-measuring a blood perfusion of the contrast material in the cancerous tissue and in the healthy tissue in the patient at a second examination time to obtain a second cancer/healthy perfusion ratio result using a second piece of imaging equipment that is computed tomography equipment if the first piece of imaging equipment used was computer tomography equipment and that is MRI imaging equipment if the first piece of imaging equipment used was MRI imaging equipment;
• and
• re-measuring a blood perfusion of the contrast material in the healthy tissue phantom at the second examination time using the second piece of imaging equipment to obtain a second phantom perfusion result.