Open AccessA Comparison Study of Single-Echo Susceptibility Weighted Imaging and Combined Multi-Echo Susceptibility Weighted Imaging in Visualizing Asymmetric Medullary Veins in Stroke Patients
Author(s) -
Chao Wang,
Tiantian Qiu,
Ruirui Song,
Yeerfan Jiaerken,
Linglin Yang,
Shaoze Wang,
Minming Zhang,
Xinfeng Yu
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0159251
Subject(s) - susceptibility weighted imaging , echo (communications protocol) , medullary cavity , medicine , gradient echo , echo time , stroke (engine) , magnetic resonance imaging , nuclear medicine , signal to noise ratio (imaging) , radiology , physics , mathematics , pathology , computer science , statistics , computer network , thermodynamics
Background Asymmetric medullary veins (AMV) are frequently observed in stroke patients and single-echo susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI s ) is the main technique in detecting AMV. Our study aimed to investigate which echo time (TE) on single-echo susceptibility is the optimal echo for visualizing AMV and to compare the ability in detecting AMV in stroke patients between SWI s and multi-echo susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI c ). Materials and Methods Twenty patients with middle cerebral artery stroke were included. SWI was acquired by using a multi-echo gradient-echo sequence with six echoes ranging from 5 ms to 35.240 ms. Three different echoes of SWI s including SWI s1 (TE = 23.144 ms), SWI s2 (TE = 29.192 ms) and SWI s3 (TE = 35.240 ms) were reconstructed. SWI c was averaged using the three echoes of SWI s . Image quality and venous contrast of medullary veins were compared between SWI s and SWI c using peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), mean opinion score (MOS), contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The presence of AMV was evaluated in each SWI s (1–3) and SWI c . Results SWI s2 had the highest PSNR, MOS and CNR and SWI s1 had the highest SNR among three different echoes of SWI s . No significant difference was found in SNR between SWI s1 and SWI s2 . PSNR, MOS and CNR in SWI c were significantly increased by 27.9%, 28.2% and 17.2% compared with SWI s2 and SNR in SWI c was significantly increased by 32.4% compared with SWI s1 . 55% of patients with AMV were detected in SWI s2 , SWI s3 and SWI c , while 50% AMV were found in SWI s1 . Conclusions SWI s using TE around 29ms was optimal in visualizing AMV. SWI c could improve image quality and venous contrast, but was equal to SWI s using a relative long TE in evaluating AMV. These results provide the technique basis for further research of AMV in stroke.