Pulsation artifact reduction using compressed sensitivity encoding in Gd-EOB-DTPA contrast-enhanced magnetic...

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Radiology
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Background:

• Cardiac pulsation artifacts in Gd-EOB-DTPA-enhanced MRI can impede accurate diagnosis in the left liver lobe.
• Improving image quality is crucial for effective diagnostic interpretation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the efficacy of compressed sensitivity encoding (CS) in reducing cardiac pulsation artifacts.
• To enhance image quality in Gd-EOB-DTPA-enhanced three-dimensional (3D) T1-weighted turbo-field echo (3D-T1TFE) sequences.

Main Methods:

• Phantom studies using a metronome-synchronized cardiac phantom to acquire images with CS-eTHRIVE and S-eTHRIVE.
• Quantitative evaluation using standard deviation of difference images based on heart rate and TFE factor.
• Clinical evaluation of artifact reduction in hepatobiliary phase images through visual assessment.

Main Results:

• CS-eTHRIVE demonstrated significantly lower standard deviation values compared to S-eTHRIVE across all tested heart rates (P < 0.01).
• CS-eTHRIVE with a TFE factor of 35 showed the lowest standard deviation, significantly differing from other groups (P < 0.01).
• Clinical images acquired with CS-eTHRIVE received higher visual scores (3.72 ± 0.46) than those with S-eTHRIVE (2.72 ± 0.98, P < 0.01).

Conclusions:

• Compressed sensitivity encoding effectively reduces cardiac pulsation artifacts in Gd-EOB-DTPA-enhanced 3D-T1TFE MRI.
• This technique offers a significant improvement in image quality for liver imaging, aiding diagnostic accuracy.