Renal T2-weighted turbo-spin-echo imaging with BLADE at 3.0 Tesla: initial experience

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the feasibility and image quality of multishot T2-weighted (T2w) renal morphologic imaging based on the acquisition of rotating rectangular strips of k-space data after successive radiofrequency excitations (BLADE technique).

A total of 7 healthy volunteers and 27 patients with suspected renal and renovascular diseases were included in this prospective intraindividual study. All exams were performed at 3.0T in a random order with a standard T2w turbo-spin-echo (TSE) sequence and with a T2w-BLADE sequence with equal spatial resolution. Phantom measurements were performed to measure the objective signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Two radiologists rated the image sharpness, the flow signal suppression, the presence of artifacts, and the overall image quality of both techniques and determined their preferred sequence.

The SNR did not show significant differences. The overall image quality was rated significantly higher for the T2w-BLADE (P < 0.05). Equally, the presence of disturbing artifacts and the sharpness was ranked significantly better for T2w-BLADE than for the T2w-TSE (P < 0.05). The T2w-BLADE was the preferred sequence in 59% of all cases, the T2w-TSE in 9%.T2w-BLADE sequences seem to be superior for the depiction of the kidneys at 3.0T, particularly due to the decreased number of artifacts and sharper delineation of the organs.