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Free‐breathing pediatric chest MRI: Performance of self‐navigated golden‐angle ordered conical ultrashort echo time acquisition
Author(s) -
Zucker Evan J.,
Cheng Joseph Y.,
Haldipur Anshul,
Carl Michael,
Vasanawala Shreyas S.
Publication year - 2018
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.25776
Subject(s) - wilcoxon signed rank test , intraclass correlation , medicine , magnetic resonance imaging , image quality , nuclear medicine , breathing , radiology , anatomy , computer science , artificial intelligence , clinical psychology , image (mathematics) , mann–whitney u test , psychometrics
Purpose To assess the feasibility and performance of conical k ‐space trajectory free‐breathing ultrashort echo time (UTE) chest magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) versus four‐dimensional (4D) flow and effects of 50% data subsampling and soft‐gated motion correction. Materials and Methods Thirty‐two consecutive children who underwent both 4D flow and UTE ferumoxytol‐enhanced chest MR (mean age: 5.4 years, range: 6 days to 15.7 years) in one 3T exam were recruited. From UTE k ‐space data, three image sets were reconstructed: 1) one with all data, 2) one using the first 50% of data, and 3) a final set with soft‐gating motion correction, leveraging the signal magnitude immediately after each excitation. Two radiologists in blinded fashion independently scored image quality of anatomical landmarks on a 5‐point scale. Ratings were compared using Wilcoxon rank‐sum, Wilcoxon signed‐ranks, and Kruskal–Wallis tests. Interobserver agreement was assessed with the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Results For fully sampled UTE, mean scores for all structures were ≥4 (good‐excellent). Full UTE surpassed 4D flow for lungs and airways ( P < 0.001), with similar pulmonary artery (PA) quality ( P = 0.62). 50% subsampling only slightly degraded all landmarks ( P < 0.001), as did motion correction. Subsegmental PA visualization was possible in >93% scans for all techniques ( P = 0.27). Interobserver agreement was excellent for combined scores (ICC = 0.83). Conclusion High‐quality free‐breathing conical UTE chest MR is feasible, surpassing 4D flow for lungs and airways, with equivalent PA visualization. Data subsampling only mildly degraded images, favoring lesser scan times. Soft‐gating motion correction overall did not improve image quality. Level of Evidence: 2 Technical Efficacy: Stage 2 J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2018;47:200–209.