title: Feasibility of ASL spinal bone marrow perfusion imaging with optimized inversion time.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the correlation between flow-sensitive alternating inversion recovery (FAIR) and dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) in the measurement of spinal bone marrow (SBM) perfusion; in addition, to assess for an optimized inversion time (TI) as well as the reproducibility of SBM FAIR perfusion.
  
  
  METHODS
  The optimized TI of a FAIR SBM perfusion experiment was carried out on 14 volunteers; two adjacent vertebral bodies were selected from each volunteer to measure the change of signal intensity (ΔM) and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of FAIR perfusion MRI with five different TIs. Then, reproducibility of FAIR data from 10 volunteers was assessed by the reposition SBM FAIR experiments. Finally, FAIR and DCE-MRI were performed on 27 subjects. The correlation between the blood flow on FAIR (BFASL ) and perfusion-related parameters on DCE-MRI was evaluated.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The maximum value of ΔM and SNR were 36.39 ± 12.53 and 2.38 ± 0.97, respectively; both were obtained when TI was near 1200 msec. There were no significant difference between the two successive measurements of SBM BFASL perfusion (P = 0.879), and the within-subject coefficients of variation (wCV) of the measurements was 3.28%. The BFASL showed a close correlation with K(trans) (P < 0.001) and Kep (P = 0.004), and no correlation with Ve (P = 0.082) was found.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  1200 msec was the optimal TI for the SBM ASL perfusion image, which led to the maximum ΔM and a good quality perfusion image. The SBM FAIR perfusion scan protocol has good reproducibility, and as blood flow measurement on FAIR is reliable and closely related with the parameters on DCE-MRI, FAIR is feasible for measuring SBM blood flow.
authors: Department of Radiology, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
authors: Dong
authors: D
authors: Xing
authors: Department of Radiology, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
authors: Yunfei
authors: Y
authors: Zha
authors: Department of Radiology, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
authors: Liyong
authors: L
authors: Yan
authors: Department of Radiology, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
authors: Kejun
authors: K
authors: Wang
authors: Department of Radiology, Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan, Hubei, China.
authors: Wei
authors: W
authors: Gong
authors: MR Research, GE Healthcare China, Shanghai, China.
authors: Hui
authors: H
authors: Lin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001853:Bone Marrow / Q000098:blood supply*; D003287:Contrast Media; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio; D013131:Spine / Q000098:blood supply
chemical_list: D003287:Contrast Media
keywords: DCE-MRI; arterial spin labeling; magnetic resonance imaging; perfusion; spinal bone marrow