Evaluation of contrast and denoising effects related to imaging parameters of compressed sensitivity encoding in...

To acquire reference data for setting an appropriate compressed sensitivity encoding (CS) for brain lesion detectability, the effects of contrast and noise on contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) were evaluated. Gadobutrol at various concentrations and manganese chloride tetrahydrate were used as a phantom. Various CS factors (0-10) and denoising levels (weak, medium, and strong) were assessed. The contrast amount decreased from CS7 in non-denoised images for 0.5-2 mmol/L solutions but slightly decreased from CS7 with denoising. The noise amount significantly increased with an increasing CS factor. Generally, there was a significant difference in the denoising level and rate across all CS factors in the case of the 2 and 0 mmol/L solutions. When the CS factor was increased without denoising, the integrated noise power spectrum (NPS) increased and decreased in the high-frequency and low-frequency areas, respectively. These data can be used to establish settings based on the degree of denoising.