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Updated: Jun 9, 2025
Advanced Diffusion Imaging in The Hippocampus of Rats with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury
Published on: August 14, 2019
Deep learning reconstruction of diffusion-weighted brain MRI for evaluation of patients with acute neurologic
Sang Ik Park1,2, Younghee Yim3, Jung Bin Lee1
1Department of Radiology, Chung-Ang University Hospital, Chung-Ang University College of Medicine, 102 Heukseok-ro, Dongjak-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea.
Purpose:
We aimed to evaluate whether the deep-learning (DL) accelerated diffusion weighted image (DWI) is clinically feasible for evaluating patients with acute neurologic symptoms, regarding its shorter study time and acceptable image quality.
Materials And Methods:
In this retrospective study, brain images obtained at DWI with a b-value of 0 s/mm2 and DWI with a b-value of 1000 s/mm2 (DWI 1000) from 321 consecutive patients with acute stroke-like symptom were reconstructed with and without DL algorithm. We compare the diagnostic performance between DL-DWI and conventional DWI for detecting brain lesions, including acute infarction. We assessed the diagnostic accuracy of conventional DWI and DL-DWI and compared the results. Qualitative analysis based on image quality was assessed and compared using a five-point visual scoring system. Apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) from DWI with and without DL were also compared.
Results:
The mean acquisition time for the DL-DWI (49 s) was significantly shorter (P < 0.001) than conventional DWI (165 s). Both DWI with and without DL showed similar performance in diagnosing brain lesions especially sensitivity (98.8% in both DWI and DL-DWI) and specificity (99.5% in both DWI and DL-DWI). Overall image quality, gray-white matter and deep gray matter differentiation of two sequences were similar. DL DWI showed more artifacts than DWI. Lesion conspicuity, especially smaller than 5 mm, was better with DL DWI than conventional DWI (p = 0.03). ADC values of white matter, deep gray matter, and pons with DL were lower than conventional DWI.
Conclusions:
Compared to conventional DWI, DL-DWI achieved comparable image quality and brain lesion visualization for acute neurological symptoms, with a significantly shorter scan time.
