Free-Breathing Contrast-Enhanced Multiphase MRI of the... : Investigative Radiology (original) (raw)

Original Articles

Free-Breathing Contrast-Enhanced Multiphase MRI of the Liver Using a Combination of Compressed Sensing, Parallel Imaging, and Golden-Angle Radial Sampling

Chandarana, Hersh MD; Feng, Li MS; Block, Tobias K. PhD; Rosenkrantz, Andrew B. MD; Lim, Ruth P. MBBS, MMed, FRANZCR; Babb, James S. PhD; Sodickson, Daniel K. MD, PhD; Otazo, Ricardo PhD

From the Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, NY.

Received for publication June 6, 2012; and accepted for publication, after revision, August 19, 2012.

Conflicts of interest and sources of funding: none declared.

Supported by grant NIH R01 EB000447 from the National Institutes of Health.

Reprints: Hersh Chandarana, MD, Department of Radiology, New York University Langone Medical Center, 550 First Ave, HW201, New York, NY 10016. E-mail: [email protected].

Abstract

Objective

The objectives of this study were to develop a new method for free-breathing contrast-enhanced multiphase liver magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) using a combination of compressed sensing, parallel imaging, and radial k-space sampling and to demonstrate the feasibility of this method by performing image quality comparison with breath-hold cartesian T1-weighted (conventional) postcontrast acquisitions in healthy participants.

Materials and Methods

This Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act–compliant prospective study received approval from the institutional review board. Eight participants underwent 3 separate contrast-enhanced fat-saturated T1-weighted gradient-echo MRI examinations with matching imaging parameters: conventional breath-hold examination with cartesian k-space sampling volumetric interpolate breath hold examination (BH-VIBE) and free-breathing acquisitions with interleaved angle-bisection and continuous golden-angle radial sampling schemes. Interleaved angle-bisection and golden-angle data from each 100 consecutive spokes were reconstructed using a combination of compressed sensing and parallel imaging (interleaved-angle radial sparse parallel [IARASP] and golden-angle radial sparse parallel [GRASP]) to generate multiple postcontrast phases.

Arterial- and venous-phase BH-VIBE, IARASP, and GRASP reconstructions were evaluated by 2 radiologists in a blinded fashion. The readers independently assessed quality of enhancement (QE), overall image quality (IQ), and other parameters of image quality on a 5-point scale, with the highest score indicating the most desirable examination. Mixed model analysis of variance was used to compare each measure of image quality.

Results

Images of BH-VIBE and GRASP had significantly higher QE and IQ values compared with IARASP for both phases (P < 0.05). The differences in QE between BH-VIBE and GRASP for the arterial and venous phases were not significant (_P_ > 0.05). Although GRASP had lower IQ score compared with BH-VIBE for the arterial (3.9 vs 4.8; P < 0.0001) and venous (4.2 vs 4.8; P = 0.005) phases, GRASP received IQ scores of 3 or more in all participants, which was consistent with acceptable or better diagnostic image quality.

Conclusion

Contrast-enhanced multiphase liver MRI of diagnostic quality can be performed during free breathing using a combination of compressed sensing, parallel imaging, and golden-angle radial sampling.