title: Comparison of breath-hold multishot echo-planar and respiratory triggered fast-spin-echo sequences for T2-weighted MRI of liver lesions.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of multishot echo-planar imaging in detecting liver tumors in comparison with respiratory triggered T2-weighted fast-spin-echo (FSE) imaging. Thirty-two patients with 70 focal liver lesions were imaged using a 1.5-T high speed MR imager. Eight-shot echo-planar images covering the whole liver were acquired during a single breath-hold period. FSE images were acquired with respiratory triggering in approximately 4 minutes. Lesion detectability and image quality of the two pulse sequences were analyzed qualitatively. Quantitative analysis was performed by means of signal-to-noise and tumor-liver contrast-to-noise analysis. Lesion detectability was comparable in both solid (86.3% vs 90.2%: .3 < P < .5) and nonsolid lesions (89.5% vs 100%: .3 < P < .5) between echo-planar and FSE images. Echo-planar imaging provided significantly reduced image artifact, better lesion conspicuity, and anatomic detail compared with FSE imaging. The signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise ratios of echo-planar images were significantly higher than those of FSE images. Breath-hold eight-shot echo-planar imaging can be an alternative to T2-weighted FSE imaging because it can provide comparable image quality in a substantially decreased acquisition time.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Mie University School of Medicine, Tsu, Japan.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yamakado
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Sakuma
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Murashima
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nakatsuka
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Matsumura
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Takeda
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D017352:Echo-Planar Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric