Optimized Breath-Hold Compressed-Sensing 3D MR Cholangiopancreatography at 3T: Image Quality Analysis and Clinical Feasibility Assessment

Abstract

Magnetic resonance cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) has been widely used in clinical practice, and recently developed compressed-sensing accelerated MRCP (CS-MRCP) has shown great potential in shortening the acquisition time. The purpose of this prospective study was to evaluate the clinical feasibility and image quality of optimized breath-hold CS-MRCP (BH-CS-MRCP) and conventional navigator-triggered MRCP. Data from 124 consecutive patients with suspected pancreaticobiliary diseases were analyzed by two radiologists using a five-point Likert-type scale. Communication between a cyst and the pancreatic duct (PD) was analyzed. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the common bile duct (CBD), contrast ratio between the CBD and periductal tissue, and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of the CBD and liver were measured. Optimized BH-CS-MRCP showed significantly fewer artifacts with better background suppression and overall image quality. Optimized BH-CS-MRCP demonstrated communication between a cyst and the PD better than conventional MRCP (96.7% vs. 76.7%, p = 0.048). SNR, contrast ratio, and CNR were significantly higher with optimized BH-CS-MRCP (p < 0.001). Optimized BH-CS-MRCP showed comparable or even better image quality than conventional MRCP, with improved visualization of communication between a cyst and the PD.

Single-Breath-Hold MRI-SPACE Cholangiopancreatography with Compressed Sensing versus Conventional Respiratory-Triggered MRI-SPACE Cholangiopancreatography at 3Tesla: Comparison of Image Quality and Diagnostic Confidence

“…Note that, unlike our study, both sequences were acquired using free-breathing navigator-triggered method and the two sequences acquisition parameters differed only for the acceleration factor and repetition time [23]. In Song et al's study, a significantly better CBD to PTB tissues CR was achieved using an optimized BH-CS-MRCP sequence compared to conventional MRCP (0.99 ± 0.01 versus 0.94 ± 0.04, p < 0.001), with slightly higher CR values compared to our study for both sequence [32].…”

“…Another optimized CS-BH-MRCP sequence at 3T with decreased accelerator factor and a reduced FOV and matrix without changes in spatial resolution, was proposed by Song et al, and demonstrated comparable or even better image quality than conventional MRCP [32]. Overall, the MPD was also better visualized with the optimized sequence [32].…”

“…Therefore, the BH sequence may be relevant for evaluating pancreatic duct disorders, provided the acquisition volume is well centered on the MPD. The optimized CS-BH-MRCP proposed by Song et al showed very interesting results and significantly better demonstrated the communication between the pancreatic cyst and the MPD as compared to the conventional MRCP [32]. With 41 patients included for the evaluation BD-IPMN using MRCP at 1.5T, the short single BH CS-MRCP sequence at 1.5T proposed by Henninger et al demonstrated significantly higher scores in all the diagnostic approach criteria (lesion conspicuity, confidence, communication) compared to the conventional NT-MRCP, a CS-NT-MRCP, and a long single BH CS-MRCP sequences [33].…”

Comparison of Compressed Sensing and Gradient and Spin-Echo in Breath-Hold 3D MR Cholangiopancreatography: Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis

“…Although BH-CS-MRCP has shown great potential as an alternative method of RT MRCP, earlier studies using BH-CS-MRCP have reported several issues, such as inferior background signal suppression and lesser visibility of small ductal structures similar to GRASE-MRCP. However, we used an optimized BH-CS-MRCP with a smaller FOV and reduced acceleration factor, which was proven to be equally good or even better than conventional MRCP [ 27 , 28 ]. Some caution is needed when interpreting our study results because a recent study comparing BH-CS-MRCP and BH-GRASE-MRCP using the same MR machine with a BH time of 16–20 s showed no significant difference in image quality except for background suppression [ 22 ].…”

Improved Single Breath-Hold SSFSE Sequence for Liver MRI Based on Compressed Sensing: Evaluation of Image Quality Compared with Conventional T2-Weighted Sequences

“…In the past few years, an MR technique using accelerated compressed sensing (CS) with a sparsity-based reconstruction of extremely undersampled data has been developed and has demonstrated much potential in making MR data acquisition faster [ 8 , 9 ]. Several recent studies have proven its clinical value in 3D MRCP sequences, enabling single BH-MRCP with comparable or even better image quality compared with conventional 3D-RT-MRCP [ 10 , 11 ]. Thus, we hypothesized that SSFSE combined with a CS technique (SSFSE CS ) can produce comparable or even better image quality than that of conventional T2 sequences including multishot TSE (mTSE) and conventional SSFSE (SSFSE CONV ) with an even shorter acquisition time.…”