Evaluating T1, T2 Relaxation, and Proton Density in Normal Brain Using Synthetic MRI with Fast Imaging Protocol

Synthetic MRI is being increasingly used for the quantification of brain longitudinal relaxation time (T1), transverse relaxation time (T2), and proton density (PD) values. However, the effect of fast imaging protocols on these quantitative values has not been fully estimated. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of fast scan parameters on T1, T2, and PD measured with a multi-dynamic multi-echo (MDME) sequence of normal brain at 3.0T. Thirty-four volunteers were scanned using 3 MDME sequences with different scan times (named Fast, 2 min, 29 sec; Routine, 4 min, 07 sec; and Research, 7 min, 46 sec, respectively). The measured T1, T2, and PD in 18 volumes of interest (VOI) of brain were compared between the 3 sequences using rank sum test, t test, coefficients of variation (CVs) analysis, correlation analysis, and Bland-Altman analysis. We found that even though T1, T2, and PD were significantly different between the 3 sequences in most of the brain regions, the intersequence CVs were relatively low and linear correlation were high. Bland-Altman plots showed that most of the values fall within the 95% prediction limits. We concluded that fast imaging protocols of MDME sequence used in our study can potentially be used for quantitative evaluation of brain tissues. Since changing scan parameters can affect the measured T1, T2, and PD values, it is necessary to use consistent scan parameter for comparing or following up cases quantitatively.