Abstract
Purpose: To establish if triple-phase arterial imaging improves the detection of arterial phase hyperintense lesions based on arterial phase capture, motion artifact degradation, and lesion enhancement when compared to single-phase imaging. Materials and methods: Patients at risk for hepatocellular carcinoma were imaged at 3.0T. Seventy-three consecutive patients with a standard single-phase MRI and eighty-five consecutive patients were imaged using extracellular contrast with triple arterial phase MRI using three sequential accelerated acquisitions of 8 s. Arterial phase capture and image quality were qualitatively categorized. Forty single-phase and forty-four triple-phase studies contained arterially enhancing lesions > 1 cm with washout appearance. The contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of the lesions was calculated. We compared the differences in means with Student t-tests and those in arterial phase capture with a Chi squared test with Yates correction. Results: The triple-phase acquisitions captured the early or late arterial phases more frequently than did the single-phase acquisition (99% vs 86%; P value = 0.006). Triple-phase also provided greater number of patients with early or late arterial phase imaging without motion artifact (92% vs 79%, P-value = 0.05). The lesion analysis revealed increased maximum CNR in the triple-phase imaging (704.4) vs. single-phase imaging (517.2), P-value < 0.001. Conclusion: Triple-phase acquisition provides more robust arterial phase imaging for hepatic lesions, with increased lesion CNR, compared to standard single-phase arterial phase imaging.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 870-876 |
Number of pages | 7 |
Journal | Abdominal Radiology |
Volume | 42 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 1 2017 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- Arterial phase imaging
- Hepatocellular carcinoma
- Liver MRI
- Respiratory motion
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Radiological and Ultrasound Technology
- Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging
- Gastroenterology
- Urology