Korean J Radiol.  2020 Dec;21(12):1339-1349. 10.3348/kjr.2020.0128.

Contrast-Enhanced High-Resolution Intracranial Vessel Wall MRI with Compressed Sensing: Comparison with Conventional T1 Volumetric Isotropic Turbo Spin Echo Acquisition Sequence

• Park CJ
• Cha J
• Ahn SS
• Choi HS
• Kim YD
• Nam HS
• Heo JH
• Lee SK

• KMID: 2509561
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.3348/kjr.2020.0128

Abstract

Objective
Compressed sensing (CS) has gained wide interest since it accelerates MRI acquisition. We aimed to compare the 3D post-contrast T1-weighted volumetric isotropic turbo spin echo acquisition (VISTA) with CS (VISTA-CS) and without CS (VISTA-nonCS) in intracranial vessel wall MRIs (VW-MRI).
Materials and Methods
From April 2017 to July 2018, 72 patients who underwent VW-MRI, including both VISTA-CS and VISTAnonCS, were retrospectively enrolled. Wall and lumen volumes, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) were measured from normal and lesion sites. Two neuroradiologists independently evaluated overall image quality and degree of normal and lesion wall delineation with a four-point scale (scores ≥ 3 defined as acceptable).
Results
Scan coverage was increased in VISTA-CS to cover both anterior and posterior circulations with a slightly shorter scan time compared to VISTA-nonCS (approximately 7 minutes vs. 8 minutes). Wall and lumen volumes were not significantly different with VISTA-CS or VISTA-nonCS (interclass correlation coefficient = 0.964–0.997). SNR was or trended towards significantly higher values in VISTA-CS than in VISTA-nonCS. At normal sites, CNR was not significantly different between two sequences (p = 0.907), whereas VISTA-CS provided lower CNR in lesion sites compared with VISTA-nonCS (p = 0.003). Subjective wall delineation was superior with VISTA-nonCS than with VISTA-CS (p = 0.019), although overall image quality did not differ (p = 0.297). The proportions of images with acceptable quality were not significantly different between VISTA-CS (83.3–97.8%) and VISTA-nonCS (75–100%).
Conclusion
CS may be useful for intracranial VW-MRI as it allows for larger scan coverage with slightly shorter scan time without compromising image quality.

Keyword

Magnetic resonance imaging; Blood vessels; Diagnostic imaging; Signal-to-noise ratio; Acceleration