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Sparse precontrast T 1 mapping for high‐resolution whole‐brain DCE‐MRI
Author(s) -
Zhu Zhibo,
Lebel R. Marc,
Bliesener Yannick,
Acharya Jay,
Frayne Richard,
Nayak Krishna S.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
magnetic resonance in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.696
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1522-2594
pISSN - 0740-3194
DOI - 10.1002/mrm.28849
Subject(s) - undersampling , nuclear medicine , flip angle , magnetic resonance imaging , neuroimaging , coefficient of variation , white matter , medicine , computer science , mathematics , radiology , artificial intelligence , statistics , psychiatry
Purpose To develop and evaluate an efficient precontrast T 1 mapping technique suitable for quantitative high‐resolution whole‐brain dynamic contrast‐enhanced–magnetic resonance imaging (DCE‐MRI). Methods Variable flip angle (VFA) T 1 mapping was considered that provides 1 × 1 × 2 mm 3 resolution to match a recent high‐resolution whole‐brain DCE‐MRI protocol. Seven FAs were logarithmically spaced from 1.5° to 15°. T 1 and M 0 maps were estimated using model‐based reconstruction. This approach was evaluated using an anatomically realistic brain tumor digital reference object (DRO) with noise‐mimicking 3T neuroimaging and fully sampled data acquired from one healthy volunteer. Methods were also applied on fourfold prospectively undersampled VFA data from 13 patients with high‐grade gliomas. Results T 1 ‐mapping precision decreased with undersampling factor R, althoughwhereas bias remained small before a critical R. In the noiseless DRO, T 1 bias was <25 ms in white matter (WM) and <11 ms in brain tumor (BT). T 1 standard deviation (SD) was <119.5 ms in WM (coefficient of variation [COV] ~11.0%) and <253.2 ms in BT (COV ~12.7%). In the noisy DRO, T 1 bias was <50 ms in WM and <30 ms in BT. For R ≤ 10, T 1 SD was <107.1 ms in WM (COV ~9.9%) and <240.9 ms in BT (COV ~12.1%). In the healthy subject, T 1 bias was <30 ms for R ≤ 16. At R = 4, T 1 SD was 171.4 ms (COV ~13.0%). In the prospective brain tumor study, T 1 values were consistent with literature values in WM and BT. Conclusion High‐resolution whole‐brain VFA T 1 mapping is feasible with sparse sampling, supporting its use for quantitative DCE‐MRI.