Acceleration of skeletal age MR examination using compressed sensing

Area of Science:

• Radiology
• Medical Imaging
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Skeletal age assessment using MRI is crucial for pediatric evaluation.
• Long MRI scan times in children often lead to motion artifacts, compromising diagnostic accuracy.
• Reducing scan time can enhance patient comfort and examination efficiency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the feasibility of accelerating pediatric MRI acquisition for skeletal age assessment using compressed sensing (CS).
• To determine if CS-MRI can reduce motion artifacts and improve the efficiency of skeletal age assessment in children.
• To validate the reliability and accuracy of CS-MRI for this application.

Main Methods:

• Optimized undersampling patterns for compressed sensing (CS).
• Performed CS-based MRI examinations with acceleration factors of 3 (CS3, 55s) and 4 (CS4, 41s) in 59 children (mean age 9.1 years).
• Assessed skeletal age by two independent raters on CS-reconstructed and fully sampled images.

Main Results:

• High interrater and intrarater reproducibility was observed for skeletal age assessment using CS-MRI (Pearson's r > 0.935, P < 0.001).
• Errors in skeletal age assessment from CS-reconstructed images were comparable to those from fully sampled images.
• CS-MRI significantly reduced scan times, with CS4 taking only 41 seconds.

Conclusions:

• Compressed sensing magnetic resonance imaging (CS-MRI) is a valid and reliable method for accelerating skeletal age assessment in children.
• The acceleration factor of 3 (CS3) demonstrated optimal performance, balancing speed and accuracy.
• CS-MRI offers a promising approach to reduce motion artifacts, enhance efficiency, and improve the pediatric imaging experience.