Three-dimensional black-blood multi-contrast carotid imaging using compressed sensing: a repeatability study

Abstract

ObjectiveThe purpose of this work is to evaluate the repeatability of a compressed sensing (CS) accelerated multi-contrast carotid protocol at 3 T.Materials and methodsTwelve volunteers and eight patients with carotid disease were scanned on a 3 T MRI scanner using a CS accelerated 3-D black-blood multi-contrast protocol which comprises T 1w, T 2w and PDw without CS, and with a CS factor of 1.5 and 2.0. The volunteers were scanned twice, the lumen/wall area and wall thickness were measured for each scan. Eight patients were scanned once, the inter/intra-observer reproducibility of the measurements was calculated.ResultsIn the repeated volunteer scans, the interclass correlation coefficient (ICC) for the wall area measurement using a CS factor of 1.5 in PDw, T 1w and T 2w were 0.95, 0.81, and 0.97, respectively. The ICC for lumen area measurement using a CS factor of 1.5 in PDw, T 1w and T 2w were 0.96, 0.92, and 0.96, respectively. In patients, the ICC for inter/intra-observer measurements of lumen/wall area, and wall thickness were all above 0.81 in all sequences.ConclusionThe results show a CS accelerated 3-D black-blood multi-contrast protocol is a robust and reproducible method for carotid imaging. Future protocol design could use CS to reduce the scanning time.

Accelerated whole brain intracranial vessel wall imaging using black blood fast spin echo with compressed sensing (CS-SPACE)

“…Previous compressed sensing vessel wall studies have focused on carotid plaque imaging, including plaque morphology imaging using 3D gradient echo sequences with black blood preparation [16] or 3D fast spin echo sequences (CUBE) [20] and T2 mapping [18]. Makhijani et al used a hidden Markov tree model based compressing method for carotid plaque imaging using a diffusion prepared gradient echo sequence (MERGE), and found that a 4.5-fold acceleration achieved imaging quality comparable to a fully sampled reference in 6 patients with carotid diseases [16], which is comparable with the optimized acceleration factor in this study (fivefold).…”

“…CS has been used to accelerate black blood extracranial T1 weighted carotid plaque imaging using 3D gradient echo sequences [16, 17], and also for the T2 mapping of the carotid plaque using a 3D fast-spin-echo (CUBE) technique [18]. The combination of CS and PI has also been used in different clinical applications, including the breast [19], carotid plaque [20], abdomen [21] and musculoskeletal disorders [22, 23]. …”

Advances in cardiovascular MR imaging

“…The study by Yuan et al [15] is a good example of such developments. In their work, they employ a 3-D black-blood multi-contrast carotid artery imaging protocol moderately accelerated with compressed sensing (1.5 and 2×) and show that these measurements are robust by quantifying the inter/intra-observer reproducibility of lumen/ wall area and carotid wall thickness measurements.…”

A Comparison of Black-blood T₂ Mapping Sequences for Carotid Vessel Wall Imaging at 3T: An Assessment of Accuracy and Repeatability

“…Previous work has shown that multi-contrast MRI can characterize high risk plaque components. 3–8 Besides the traditional “weighted” images, there are several studies which have performed quantitative measurements of the vessel wall and major plaque components’ relaxation times both in vivo and ex vivo 9–14…”