DCE-MRI of esophageal carcinoma using star-VIBE compared with conventional 3D-VIBE

To investigate the value of the star-VIBE sequence in dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging of esophageal carcinoma under free breathing conditions. From February 2019 to June 2020, 60 patients with esophageal carcinoma were prospectively enrolled to undergo dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) with the K-space golden-angle radial stack-of-star acquisition scheme (star-VIBE) sequence (Group A) or conventional 3D volumetric-interpolated breath-hold examination (3D-VIBE) sequence (Group B), completely randomized grouping. The image quality of DCE-MRI was subjectively evaluated at five levels and objectively evaluated according to the image signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-noise ratio (CNR). The DCE-MRI parameters of volume transfer constant (Ktrans), rate constant (Kep) and vascular extracellular volume fraction (Ve) were calculated using the standard Tofts double-compartment model in the post-perfusion treatment software TISSUE 4D (Siemens). Each group included 30 randomly selected cases. There was a significant difference in subjective classification between the groups (35.90 vs 25.10, p = 0.009). The study showed that both the SNR and CNR of group A were significantly higher than those of group B (p = 0.004 and < 0.001, respectively). There was no significant difference in Ktrans, Kep or Ve between the groups (all p > 0.05). The star-VIBE sequence can be applied in DCE-MRI examination of esophageal carcinoma, which can provide higher image quality than the conventional 3D-VIBE sequence in the free breathing state.