title: Focal hepatic lesion detection: comparison of four fat-suppressed T2-weighted MR imaging pulse sequences.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate fat-suppressed T2-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) imaging with conventional spin-echo (SE), breath-hold fast SE, respiratory-triggered fast SE, and breath-hold multishot SE echo-planar sequences for the detection of focal hepatic lesions.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fat-suppressed T2-weighted MR images obtained with the four sequences in 55 patients with 81 solid and 129 nonsolid lesions were retrospectively analyzed. Image review was conducted on a segment-by-segment basis; a total of 440 liver segments were reviewed separately for solid and nonsolid lesions by three independent radiologists. Diagnostic accuracy was evaluated with receiver operating characteristic analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean lesion-to-liver contrast-to-noise ratio was highest on the multishot SE echo-planar images of both solid and nonsolid lesions. Fat-suppressed respiratory-triggered fast SE images had significantly better (P < .05) or comparative detectability of both solid and nonsolid lesions compared with the other types of images. Image quality was best on the respiratory-triggered fast SE images.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Fat-suppressed respiratory-triggered fast SE imaging should replace fat-suppressed conventional SE imaging as a standard T2-weighted imaging examination in the detection of focal hepatic lesions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Gifu University School of Medicine, Japan.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kanematsu
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hoshi
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Itoh
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Murakami
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hori
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Kondo
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Yokoyama
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Nakamura
mesh_terms: D000273:Adipose Tissue; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008107:Liver Diseases / Q000473:pathology*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity