Estimating microstructural properties of a biomimetic tumour tissue phantom using diffusion-weighted MRI

Physical phantom experiments allow validation of microstructural models that seek to link the diffusion signal to specific tissue properties, and provide standard measurements for calibration and comparison of scanners in multi-site research. We have previously introduced biomimetic phantoms of axonal structure and here we introduce a novel phantom with microstructural characteristics mimicking tumour cellular structure. We also demonstrate how a model of the diffusion signal may be used to estimate the microstructural properties of the tumour tissue phantom, and provide an initial assessment of the accuracy and precision of these estimates by using independent scanning electron microscope (SEM) measurements and bootstrap simulations.