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Comparison of breath‐hold multishot echo‐planar and respiratory triggered fast‐spin‐echo sequences for T2‐weighted MRI of liver lesions
Author(s) -
Yamakado Koichiro,
Sakuma Hajime,
Murashima Shuichi,
Nakatsuka Atsuhiro,
Matsumura Kaname,
Takeda Kan
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
journal of magnetic resonance imaging
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.563
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1522-2586
pISSN - 1053-1807
DOI - 10.1002/jmri.1880080225
Subject(s) - echo planar imaging , medicine , image quality , artifact (error) , nuclear medicine , magnetic resonance imaging , spin echo , single shot , lesion , echo (communications protocol) , echo time , radiology , physics , pathology , computer science , optics , image (mathematics) , artificial intelligence , computer network
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of multishot echo‐planar imaging in detecting liver tumors in comparison with respiratory triggered T2‐weighted fast‐spin‐echo (FSE) imaging. Thirty‐two patients with 70 focal liver lesions were imaged using a 1.5‐T high speed MR imager. Eight‐shot echo‐planar images covering the whole liver were acquired during a single breath‐hold period. FSE images were acquired with respiratory triggering in approximately 4 minutes. Lesion detectability and image quality of the two pulse sequences were analyzed qualitatively. Quantitative analysis was performed by means of signal‐to‐noise and tumor‐liver contrast‐to‐noise analysis. Lesion detectability was comparable in both solid (86.3% vs 90.2%: .3 < P < .5) and nonsolid lesions (89.5% vs 100%: .3 < P < .5) between echo‐planar and FSE images. Echo‐planar imaging provided significantly reduced image artifact, better lesion conspicuity, and anatomic detail compared with FSE imaging. The signal‐to‐noise and contrast‐to‐noise ratios of echo‐planar images were significantly higher than those of FSE images. Breath‐hold eight‐shot echo‐planar imaging can be an alternative to T2‐weighted FSE imaging because it can provide comparable image quality in a substantially decreased acquisition time.