Gastrointestinal 4D MRI with respiratory motion correction

Gastrointestinal motion patterns such as peristalsis and segmental contractions can alter the shape and position of the stomach and intestines with respect to other irradiated organs during radiation therapy. Unfortunately, these deformations are concealed by conventional four-dimensional (4D)-MRI techniques, which were developed to visualize respiratory motion by binning acquired data into respiratory motion states without considering the phases of GI motion. We present a method to reconstruct breathing-compensated images showing the phases of periodic gastric motion and study the effect of this motion on regional anatomical structures.

Sixty-seven DCE-MRI examinations were performed on patients undergoing MRI simulation for hepatocellular carcinoma using a golden-angle stack-of-stars sequence that collected 2000 radial spokes over 5 min. The collected data were reconstructed using a method with integrated respiratory motion correction into a time series of 3D image volumes without visible breathing motion. From this series, a gastric motion signal was extracted by temporal filtering of time-intensity curves in the stomach. Using this motion signal, breathing-corrected back-projection images were sorted according to the gastric phase and reconstructed into 21 gastric motion state images showing the phases of gastric motion.

Reconstructed image volumes showed gastric motion states clearly with no visible breathing motion or related artifacts. The mean frequency of the gastric motion signal was 3 cycles/min with a standard deviation of 0.27 cycles/min.

Periodic gastrointestinal motion can be visualized without confounding respiratory motion using the presented GI 4D MRI technique. GI 4D MRIs may help define internal target volumes for treatment planning, aid in planning organ at risk volume definition, or support motion model development for gastrointestinal motion tracking algorithms for real-time MR-guided radiation therapy.