Approaches to Validating the "Quantity" in Quantitative MR Cerebral Perfusion Studies

Stroke is a major killer across the world; with staggering financial implications. Magnetic resonance dynamic susceptibility contrast studies are a plausible approach to provide quantitative cerebral blood flow (CBF) measurements. However, what is the correct approach to take when a proven method from another scientific area is suggested as a means for a minor increase in CBF accuracy, but leads to results that totally disagree with the established literature? Agile methodologies are being introduced into business as a new "light-footed" approach to developing software with considerable success. We describe our experiences of adapting Agile software engineering practices to establish a repeatable hardware-software co-design framework for biomedical algorithm validation.