A comparison of simultaneous multislice and conventional diffusion tensor imaging techniques for ischemic stroke...

Area of Science:

• Neuroimaging
• Radiology
• Stroke Imaging

Background:

• Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is crucial for ischemic stroke evaluation but suffers from long acquisition times.
• Simultaneous multislice (SMS) imaging offers a solution by acquiring multiple slices concurrently, reducing overall scan duration.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the efficacy and diagnostic performance of conventional DTI (STD-DTI) versus SMS-accelerated DTI (SMS-2-DTI) for ischemic stroke workup.
• To evaluate image quality, diagnostic accuracy, and key DTI metrics between the two acquisition methods.

Main Methods:

• A prospective study comparing STD-DTI and SMS-2-DTI on a 1.5T MRI in patients with suspected ischemic stroke.
• Image quality, DTI-trace status, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), coefficient of variation (CV) of mean diffusivity (MD) and fractional anisotropy (FA) were assessed by blinded neuroradiologists.

Main Results:

• SMS-2-DTI reduced scan time by 45% (132.17 ± 15.33s) but showed reduced image quality (3.8 ± 0.6 vs 4.7 ± 0.5) and SNR (32.58 ± 4.30 vs 42.85 ± 4.44).
• Diagnostic accuracy (AUC) and interrater reliability (κ) remained high and comparable between STD-DTI and SMS-2-DTI.
• CV of MD was significantly reduced with SMS-2-DTI (0.20 ± 0.04 vs 0.23 ± 0.03), while CV of FA and DTI-trace were not significantly different.

Conclusions:

• SMS-accelerated DTI is a feasible technique for accelerating ischemic stroke workup at 1.5T in non-hyper-acute settings.
• The study supports the use of SMS DTI for faster acquisition of diagnostic images for ischemic stroke detection.