Assessment of Morphological MRI for Pulmonary Changes in Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Patients

Abstract

Morphologic MRI of the lung in CF patients demonstrates comparable results to MDCT and chest x-ray. Because radiation exposure is an issue in CF patients, MRI might have the ability to be used as an appropriate alternative method for pulmonary imaging.

Half‐fourier‐acquisition single‐shot turbo spin‐echo (HASTE) MRI of the lung at 3 Tesla using parallel imaging with 32‐receiver channel technology

“…However, also a decreased SNR of images acquired with parallel imaging was shown, which limits the use of higher acceleration factors (R Ͼ 2) with standard coil geometry. This is also confirmed by recent publications on HASTE MRI of the lungs, which all have used the GRAPPA algorithm with an acceleration factor of R ϭ 2 (3,13,22,23).…”

“…These findings might not be generalized for other pulse sequences used for pulmonary MRI (e.g., 3D GRE or TSE MRI). However, HASTE is generally accepted as a standard imaging technique for lung imaging and has been clinically evaluated for the assessment of lung pathology such as pulmonary nodules and infiltrates (3,6,7,9,12,13,24). Our study has several potential limitations.…”

“…Recent publications on the potential increase of lifetime cancer risk by CT have intensified the discussion and awareness of radiation exposure in diagnostic imaging (1,2). Therefore, MRI as a radiation-free examination may be considered as a valuable alternative for lung imaging in certain patient groups, for example, in patients who will receive frequent follow-up examinations such as immunocompromised patients with fever of unknown origin or patients with cystic fibrosis (3,4).…”

Imaging of Cystic Fibrosis Lung Disease and Clinical Interpretation

“…The aforementioned pathological changes of the CF lung represent high signal components against the black background of healthy lung tissue ("plus pathologies"). This facilitates detection and results in a comparably high sensitivity for MRI as with CT for most pathologies [29]. MRI detected a similar Especially the middle lobe shows destructive cystic bronchiectasis (black arrowhead), which is typical for CF (sometimes also called sacculations).…”

“…Depending on patient size and ability to breath-hold, it is useful to prepare three separate protocols (• ▶ Fig. 1 Table 2) [11,28,29]. Each should start with balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) sequences.…”