Biliary tract depiction in living potential liver donors: intraindividual comparison of MR cholangiography at 3.0 and 1.5 T.
OBJECTIVE
To intraindividually compare the accuracy of magnetic resonance (MR) cholangiography at 3.0 and 1.5 T for depicting biliary anatomy with intraoperative cholangiography as the reference standard and to compare the image quality for biliary tract visualization at these two field strengths.


METHODS
After obtaining institutional review board approval and informed consent, 52 living potential liver donors underwent MR cholangiography at both 1.5 and 3.0 T. The protocol included projectional single-section rapid acquisition with relaxation enhancement (RARE) and respiratory-triggered three-dimensional (3D) fast spin-echo (SE) T2-weighted sequences. Two readers independently analyzed images, scoring the visualization of all first- and second-order biliary branches on a four-point scale and determining the number of visible third-order branches.


RESULTS
MR cholangiography at 3.0 T correctly depicted biliary anatomy in 90.4% of subjects on combined analysis of both sequences by both readers, in 88.5% with projectional RARE images for both readers, and in 84.6% and 88.5% with 3D fast SE images for readers 1 and 2, respectively. MR cholangiography at 1.5 T showed 86.5% and 84.6% accuracy on combined analysis for readers 1 and 2, respectively; 78.8% and 75.0% accuracy on projectional RARE images for readers 1 and 2, respectively; and 84.6% and 86.5% accuracy with 3D fast SE images for readers 1 and 2, respectively. With the projectional RARE sequence, 3.0-T MR cholangiography demonstrated significantly higher mean visualization scores for second-order branches (reader 1: 2.29 vs 1.78, P = .01; reader 2: 2.52 vs 2.10, P < .01) and mean numbers of visible third-order branches (reader 1: 5.53 vs 4.21, P < .01; reader 2: 5.91 vs 3.74, P < .01) than did 1.5-T MR cholangiography.


CONCLUSIONS
Compared with 1.5-T MR cholangiography, 3.0-T MR cholangiography did not significantly increase accuracy for identification of biliary anatomy. Projectional RARE images at 3.0 T enabled better visualization of second- and third-order branches than did those at 1.5 T.
Kim
So Yeon
SY
Department of Radiology and Research Institute of Radiology, University of Ulsan College of Medicine, Asan Medical Center, 388-1, Pungnap2-dong, Songpa-ku, Seoul 138-736, Korea.
Byun
Jae Ho
JH
Lee
Seung Soo
SS
Park
Seong Ho
SH
Jang
Yun-Jin
YJ
Lee
Moon-Gyu
MG
D000328:Adult; D001659:Biliary Tract / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D049448:Cholangiopancreatography, Magnetic Resonance / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D016031:Liver Transplantation; D019520:Living Donors; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric