Purpose:To optimize intravoxel incoherent motion (IVIM) diffusion-weighted (DW) imaging by estimating the effects of diffusion gradient polarity and breathing acquisition scheme on image quality, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), IVIM parameters, and parameter reproducibility, as well as to investigate the potential of IVIM in the detection of hepatic fibrosis. Materials and Methods:In this institutional review board-approved prospective study, 20 subjects (seven healthy volunteers, 13 patients with hepatitis C virus infection; 14 men, six women; mean age, 46 years) underwent IVIM DW imaging with four sequences: (a) respiratory-triggered ( Mixed-model analysis of variance was used to compare image quality, SNR, IVIM parameters, and interexamination variability between the four sequences, as well as the ability to differentiate areas of liver fibrosis from normal liver tissue. Results:Image quality with RT sequences was superior to that with FB acquisitions (P = .02) and was not affected by gradient polarity. SNR did not vary significantly between sequences. IVIM parameter reproducibility was moderate to excellent for PF and D, while it was less reproducible for D*. PF and D were both significantly lower in patients with hepatitis C virus than in healthy volunteers with the RT BP sequence (PF = 13.5% 6 5. Conclusion:The RT BP DW imaging sequence had the best results in terms of image quality, reproducibility, and ability to discriminate between healthy and fibrotic liver with biexponential fitting.q RSNA, 2012

The purpose of this work was to validate ventilation-weighted (VW) and perfusion-weighted (QW) Fourier decomposition (FD) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with hyperpolarized (3)He MRI and dynamic contrast-enhanced perfusion (DCE) MRI in a controlled animal experiment. Three healthy pigs were studied on 1.5-T MR scanner. For FD MRI, the VW and QW images were obtained by postprocessing of time-resolved lung image sets. DCE acquisitions were performed immediately after contrast agent injection. (3)He MRI data were acquired following the administration of hyperpolarized helium and nitrogen mixture. After baseline MR scans, pulmonary embolism was artificially produced. FD MRI and DCE MRI perfusion measurements were repeated. Subsequently, atelectasis and air trapping were induced, which followed with FD MRI and (3)He MRI ventilation measurements. Distributions of signal intensities in healthy and pathologic lung tissue were compared by statistical analysis. Images acquired using FD, (3)He, and DCE MRI in all animals before the interventional procedure showed homogeneous ventilation and perfusion. Functional defects were detected by all MRI techniques at identical anatomical locations. Signal intensity in VW and QW images was significantly lower in pathological than in healthy lung parenchyma. The study has shown usefulness of FD MRI as an alternative, noninvasive, and easily implementable technique for the assessment of acute changes in lung function.

Combined IVIM and ASL MRI can better evaluate the diffusion and perfusion properties for allografts early after kidney transplantation.

MR-guided transrectal prostate biopsy is currently a time-consuming procedure because the imaging slice is often manually realigned with the biopsy needle during lesion targeting. In this work a pulse sequence is presented that automatically follows a passive marker attached to a dedicated MR biopsy device holder, thus providing an alternative to existing active tracking methods. In two orthogonal tracking FLASH images of the marker the position of the needle axis is automatically identified using a phase-only cross-correlation (POCC) algorithm. The position information is then used to realign a trueFISP imaging slice in real time. In phantom experiments the sensitivity of this technique to initial misalignments of the marker and to the signal-to-noise ratio was evaluated. In several puncture experiments the precision of the needle placement was analyzed. The POCC algorithm allowed for a precise identification of the marker in the images even under severe initial misalignments of up to 45°. At a frame rate 1 image/s a precision of the needle placement of 1.5 ؎ 1.1 mm could be achieved. Magn Reson Med 59:1043-1050, 2008.

Contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS), with the recent development of both contrast-specific imaging modalities and microbubble-based contrast agents, allows noninvasive quantification of microcirculation in vivo. Nevertheless, functional parameters obtained by modeling contrast uptake kinetics could be impaired by respiratory motion. Accordingly, we developed an automatic respiratory gating method and tested it on 35 CEUS hepatic datasets with focal lesions. Each dataset included fundamental mode and cadence contrast pulse sequencing (CPS) mode sequences acquired simultaneously. The developed method consisted in (1) the estimation of the respiratory kinetics as a linear combination of the first components provided by a principal components analysis constrained by a prior knowledge on the respiratory rate in the frequency domain, (2) the automated generation of two respiratory-gated subsequences from the CPS mode sequence by detecting end-of-inspiration and end-of-expiration phases from the respiratory kinetics. The fundamental mode enabled a more reliable estimation of the respiratory kinetics than the CPS mode. The k-means algorithm was applied on both the original CPS mode sequences and the respiratory-gated subsequences resulting in clustering maps and associated mean kinetics. Our respiratory gating process allowed better superimposition of manually drawn lesion contours on k-means clustering maps as well as substantial improvement of the quality of contrast uptake kinetics. While the quality of maps and kinetics was satisfactory in only 11/35 datasets before gating, it was satisfactory in 34/35 datasets after gating. Moreover, noise amplitude estimated within the delineated lesions was reduced from 62 ± 21 to 40 ± 10 (p < 0.01) after gating. These findings were supported by the low residual horizontal (0.44 ± 0.29 mm) and vertical (0.15 ± 0.16 mm) shifts found during manual motion correction of each respiratory-gated subsequence. The developed technique could be used as a basis for accurate quantification of perfusion parameters for the evaluation and follow-up of patients under antiangiogenic therapies.

Combination of a high b-value extrapolation and sFOV may contribute to increase diagnostic accuracy of DWI without an increase of acquisition time, which may be useful to guide targeted prostate biopsies and to improve quality of multiparametric MRI (mMRI) especially under economical aspects in a private practice setting.

The Fundão dam collapsed releasing 60 million tons of mining waste into the environment. The mining wastes should be better studied, since some of them are deposited on the alluvial plains soil and at the bottom of the rivers, like sediments, of the region affected. Thus, this work aims to perform the chemical, physical and adsorptive characterization of the samples colleted in region de Paracatu de Baixo. The mining waste has uneven surface, with sizes ranging from 2 to 200 μm, pHPCZ in 6.0. Are composed predominantly by kaolinite, goethite, hematite, gibbsite and quartz. It has been classified as non-hazardous residues. The adsorption studies showed the mining waste have a low Cationic Exchange Capacity. The sorption process was occurs by ion exchange and the kinetics follows the pseudo second order model (R > 0.78). The process is endothermic (ΔH in 29.33 kJ mol) and spontaneous (ΔG in -24.7 kJ mol at 25 °C). The Langmuir model presented a better fit (R > 0.995) to the experimental data. Therefore, the methylene blue can be used as a cation model to predict the behavior of cationic species on the mining waste, with maximum adsorption capacity of 4.42 mg g at 25 °C.

This study was undertaken to evaluate the effectiveness of several household practices (washing with water or acidic, alkaline, and oxidizing solutions, and peeling) in minimizing pesticide residue contamination of tomatoes, as well as the impact on the quality of the treated fruit. Tests were performed using two systemic fungicides (azoxystrobin and difenoconazole) and one contact fungicide (chlorothalonil). Solid-liquid extraction with low temperature partition (SLE/LTP) and liquid-liquid extraction with low temperature partition (LLE/LTP) were used to prepare the samples for pesticides determination by gas chromatography. Washing the tomatoes with water removed approximately 44% of chlorothalonil, 26% of difenoconazole, and 17% of azoxystrobin. Sodium bicarbonate (5%) and acetic acid (5%) solutions were more efficient, removing between 32 and 83% of the residues, while peeling removed from 68 to 88% of the pesticides. The washing solutions altered some fruit quality parameters, including acidity and chroma, and also caused weight loss. Acetic acid (0.15 and 5%) and hypochlorite (1%) solutions had the greatest effect on these parameters.