title: Free-breathing radial volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination vs breath-hold cartesian volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination magnetic resonance imaging of the liver at 1.5T.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To compare breath-hold cartesian volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination (cVIBE) and free-breathing radial VIBE (rVIBE) and determine whether rVIBE could replace cVIBE in routine liver magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
  
  
  METHODS
  In this prospective study, 15 consecutive patients scheduled for routine MRI of the abdomen underwent pre- and post-contrast breath-hold cVIBE imaging (19 s acquisition time) and free-breathing rVIBE imaging (111 s acquisition time) on a 1.5T Siemens scanner. Three radiologists with 2, 4, and 8 years post-fellowship experience in abdominal imaging evaluated all images. The radiologists were blinded to the sequence types, which were presented in a random order for each patient. For each sequence, the radiologists scored the cVIBE and rVIBE images for liver edge sharpness, hepatic vessel clarity, presence of artifacts, lesion conspicuity, fat saturation, and overall image quality using a five-point scale.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Compared to rVIBE, cVIBE yielded significantly (P < 0.001) higher scores for liver edge sharpness (mean score, 3.87 vs 3.37), hepatic-vessel clarity (3.71 vs 3.18), artifacts (3.74 vs 3.06), lesion conspicuity (3.81 vs 3.2), and overall image quality (3.91 vs 3.24). cVIBE and rVIBE did not significantly differ in quality of fat saturation (4.12 vs 4.03, P = 0.17). The inter-observer variability with respect to differences between rVIBE and cVIBE scores was close to zero compared to random error and inter-patient variation. Quality of rVIBE images was rated as acceptable for all parameters.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  rVIBE cannot replace cVIBE in routine liver MRI. At 1.5T, free-breathing rVIBE yields acceptable, although slightly inferior image quality compared to breath-hold cVIBE.
authors.affiliation: Sireesha Yedururi, HyunSeon C Kang, Nicolaus A Wagner-Bartak, Leonardo P Marcal, Janio Szklaruk, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, United States.
authors.forename: Sireesha
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yedururi
authors.affiliation: Sireesha Yedururi, HyunSeon C Kang, Nicolaus A Wagner-Bartak, Leonardo P Marcal, Janio Szklaruk, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, United States.
authors.forename: HyunSeon C
authors.initials: HC
authors.lastname: Kang
authors.affiliation: Sireesha Yedururi, HyunSeon C Kang, Nicolaus A Wagner-Bartak, Leonardo P Marcal, Janio Szklaruk, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, United States.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Sireesha Yedururi, HyunSeon C Kang, Nicolaus A Wagner-Bartak, Leonardo P Marcal, Janio Szklaruk, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, United States.
authors.forename: Nicolaus A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Wagner-Bartak
authors.affiliation: Sireesha Yedururi, HyunSeon C Kang, Nicolaus A Wagner-Bartak, Leonardo P Marcal, Janio Szklaruk, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, United States.
authors.forename: Leonardo P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Marcal
authors.affiliation: Sireesha Yedururi, HyunSeon C Kang, Nicolaus A Wagner-Bartak, Leonardo P Marcal, Janio Szklaruk, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, United States.
authors.forename: R Jason
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Stafford
authors.affiliation: Sireesha Yedururi, HyunSeon C Kang, Nicolaus A Wagner-Bartak, Leonardo P Marcal, Janio Szklaruk, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, United States.
authors.forename: Brandy J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Willis
authors.affiliation: Sireesha Yedururi, HyunSeon C Kang, Nicolaus A Wagner-Bartak, Leonardo P Marcal, Janio Szklaruk, Department of Diagnostic Radiology, the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston, TX 77030, United States.
authors.forename: Janio
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Szklaruk
keywords: Free-breathing magnetic resonance acquisition; Liver magnetic resonance imaging; Radial imaging