DCE-MRI of esophageal carcinoma using star-VIBE compared with conventional 3D-VIBE

• Published in: Scientific reports 2021-12, Vol.11 (1), p.24091-24091, Article 24091
• Main Authors: Deng, He-Ping, Li, Xue-Ming, Yang, Liu, Wang, Yi, Wang, Shao-Yu, Zhou, Peng, Lu, Yu-Jie, Ren, Jin, Wang, Min
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 631/1647/245; 631/67/1504; 631/67/2321; Aged; Breath Holding; Carcinoma - diagnostic imaging; Esophageal cancer; Esophageal carcinoma; Esophageal Neoplasms - diagnostic imaging; Esophagus; Female; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Image Enhancement - methods; Imaging, Three-Dimensional - methods; Magnetic resonance imaging; Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Male; Middle Aged; multidisciplinary; Perfusion; Respiration; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Signal-To-Noise Ratio
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-03171-5

To investigate the value of the star-VIBE sequence in dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging of esophageal carcinoma under free breathing conditions. From February 2019 to June 2020, 60 patients with esophageal carcinoma were prospectively enrolled to undergo dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) with the K-space golden-angle radial stack-of-star acquisition scheme (star-VIBE) sequence (Group A) or conventional 3D volumetric-interpolated breath-hold examination (3D-VIBE) sequence (Group B), completely randomized grouping. The image quality of DCE-MRI was subjectively evaluated at five levels and objectively evaluated according to the image signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-noise ratio (CNR). The DCE-MRI parameters of volume transfer constant (Ktrans), rate constant (Kep) and vascular extracellular volume fraction (Ve) were calculated using the standard Tofts double-compartment model in the post-perfusion treatment software TISSUE 4D (Siemens). Each group included 30 randomly selected cases. There was a significant difference in subjective classification between the groups (35.90 vs 25.10, p  = 0.009). The study showed that both the SNR and CNR of group A were significantly higher than those of group B ( p  = 0.004 and  0.05). The star-VIBE sequence can be applied in DCE-MRI examination of esophageal carcinoma, which can provide higher image quality than the conventional 3D-VIBE sequence in the free breathing state.