title: MR of focal liver lesions: comparison of breath-hold and non-breath-hold hybrid RARE and conventional spin-echo T2-weighted pulse sequences.
abstract: To compare liver lesion detection rates, tissue signal and noise data, and qualitative parameters for breath-hold (BH) and non-breath-hold (NBH) hybrid rapid acquisition with relaxation enhancement (RARE) and conventional spin-echo (CSE) T2-weighted (CSE-T2) MR sequences, 20 patients were imaged using all three sequences. Lesion detection rates were 73.5% for the CSE-T2 sequence and 81.1% and 88.6% for the BH-RARE and NBH-RARE sequences, respectively (P = .027). Mean lesion-to-liver signal-difference-to-noise ratio for the NBH-RARE sequence was 14.0 +/- 11.5, significantly greater than 9.8 +/- 7.8 obtained for the BH-RARE sequence (P = .050) and 9.0 +/- 6.2 obtained for the CSE-T2 sequence (P = .015). The NBH-RARE sequence demonstrated fewer artifacts and greater overall image quality compared to the CSE-T2 sequence. The NBH-RARE sequence is a useful alternative to the liver signal-difference-to-noise ratio and lesion detection rate and better overall image quality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Seattle, WA 98108, USA.
authors.forename: K D
authors.initials: KD
authors.lastname: Carpenter
authors.forename: S E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Macaulay
authors.forename: S J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Schulte
authors.forename: R G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Obregon
authors.forename: R C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Nelson
authors.forename: H E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Simon
authors.forename: U P
authors.initials: UP
authors.lastname: Schmiedl
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016477:Artifacts; D003560:Cysts / Q000175:diagnosis; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D008099:Liver / Q000473:pathology; D008107:Liver Diseases / Q000175:diagnosis*; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000556:secondary; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012119:Respiration; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity