Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 16, 2026
Pulmonary Structural MRI using Free-Breathing, Self-Gated Ultra-short Echo Time Imaging
Published on: September 6, 2024
Reducing scan time burden for neonatal MRI of pulmonary structure using FLORET UTE
Andrew D Hahn1, Matt M Willmering2,3,4,5, Nara S Higano2,3,4
1Department of Radiology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.
Objective:
Pulmonary MRI in neonates can be performed with quality comparable to radial 3D ultrashort echo time (UTE) MRI in significantly less time using a FLORET trajectory.
Materials And Methods:
Eighteen NICU patients with severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD), age 40.9 ± 3.0 weeks at time of imaging, underwent MRI using Radial and FLORET UTE at 1.5 T. Pulmonary signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), lung density, and radiologist scoring of motion artifacts and image quality were compared across sequence types.
Results:
FLORET UTE reduced scan time by ~ 75% (4:40 vs. 16:41 min.) while incurring only ~ 10-30% SNR reduction vs. radial (radial vs. 1-hub FLORET: 9.8 ± 2.8 vs. 9.0 ± 2.6, radial vs. 3-hub FLORET: 9.2 ± 3.0 vs. 7.7 ± 2.3), P < 0.05. Normalized lung density measurements were elevated in FLORET (radial vs. 1-hub FLORET: 0.42 ± 0.13 vs. 0.49 ± 0.14, radial vs. 3-hub FLORET: 0.49 ± 0.13 vs. 0.51 ± 0.13), P < 0.05. Accounting for scan time differences, normalized radial SNR was 19% and 16% lower than 1-hub and 3-hub FLORET, respectively (P < 0.05). No significant differences in radiologist scores were found.
Conclusion:
FLORET UTE images are of quality comparable to radial UTE at 75% of the total scan time, the current state of the art, and have a much greater time-SNR efficiency with enormous benefit in the neonatal population.
