High-spatial-resolution Hepatobiliary Phase Imaging Using An Optimized Integrated Combination of Parallel Imaging and...

Area of Science:

• Radiology
• Medical Imaging
• Hepatobiliary Imaging

Background:

• Hepatobiliary phase (HBP) imaging is crucial for liver lesion detection.
• Optimizing HBP imaging for higher spatial resolution can improve diagnostic accuracy.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the feasibility of high-spatial-resolution HBP imaging.
• To evaluate the integration of Compressed SENSE (CS) with parallel imaging for enhanced HBP MRI.

Main Methods:

• Sixty participants underwent liver MRI with three HBP techniques: eTHRIVE, CS-eTHRIVE_4mm, and CS-eTHRIVE_2mm.
• Quantitative analysis included signal intensity ratio (SIR) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR).
• Qualitative assessment evaluated image quality and conspicuity of hypointense nodules, with sensitivity calculated for nodule detection.

Main Results:

• CS-eTHRIVE_2mm demonstrated superior image quality and significantly higher sensitivity (97.5%) for detecting hypointense nodules compared to eTHRIVE (86.4%) and CS-eTHRIVE_4mm (89.0%).
• While SNR was lower in CS-eTHRIVE_2mm, image quality and lesion detectability were markedly improved.
• SIR did not differ significantly across the techniques.

Conclusions:

• The thin-slice CS-eTHRIVE_2mm technique provides excellent image quality and lesion detectability.
• High-spatial-resolution HBP imaging integrated with Compressed SENSE is feasible and enhances diagnostic performance in liver MRI.