Subtractionless compressed-sensing-accelerated whole-body MR angiography using two-point Dixon fat suppression with single-pass half-reduced contrast dose: feasibility study and initial experience

• Published in: Journal of cardiovascular magnetic resonance 2023-07, Vol.25 (1), p.41-41, Article 41
• Main Authors: Fu, Qing, Lei, Zi-qiao, Li, Jing-yang, Wu, Jia-wei, Liu, Xiao-ming, Fan, Wen-liang, Sun, Peng, Wang, Jia-zheng, Liu, Ding-xi, Yang, Fan, Zheng, Chuan-sheng, Kong, Xiang-chuang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Abdomen; Age; Angiography; Ankle; Blood vessels; Compressed sensing; Computed tomography; Contamination; Contrast agents; Contrast Media; Coronary vessels; CT imaging; Feasibility Studies; Female; Humans; Image enhancement; Image quality; Image reconstruction; Magnetic Resonance Angiography - methods; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); Mean; Medical imaging; Medical research; Medicine, Experimental; Middle Aged; Multi-echo Dixon (mDixon); Patients; Predictive Value of Tests; Prospective Studies; Pulmonary arteries; Quantitative analysis; Rankings; Segments; Standard deviation; Statistical analysis; Thorax; Tomography; Veins & arteries; Whole-body magnetic resonance angiography (WBMRA); Workflow
• ISSN: 1097-6647; 1532-429X
• DOI: 10.1186/s12968-023-00953-w

To investigate the feasibility and clinical utility of a compressed-sensing-accelerated subtractionless whole-body MRA (CS-WBMRA) protocol with only contrast injection for suspected arterial diseases, by comparison to conventional dual-pass subtraction-based whole-body MRA (conventional-WBMRA) and available computed tomography angiography (CTA). This prospective study assessed 86 patients (mean age, 56 years ± 16.4 [standard deviation]; 25 women) with suspected arterial diseases from May 2021 to December 2022, who underwent CS-WBMRA (n = 48, mean age, 55.9 years ± 16.4 [standard deviation]; 25 women) and conventional-WBMRA (n = 38, mean age, 48 years ± 17.4 [standard deviation]; 20 women) on a 3.0 T MRI after random group assignment based on the chronological order of enrolment. Of all enrolled patients administered the CS-WBMRA protocol, 35% (17/48) underwent CTA as required by clinical demands. Two experienced radiologists independently scored the qualitative image quality and venous enhancement contamination. Quantitative image assessment was carried out by determining and comparing the apparent signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs) and contrast-to-noise ratios (CNRs) of four representative arterial segments. The total examination time and contrast-dose were also recorded. The independent samples t-test or the Wilcoxon rank sum test was used for statistical analysis. The overall scores of CS-WBMRA outperformed those of conventional-WMBRA (3.40 ± 0.60 vs 3.22 ± 0.55, P < 0.001). In total, 1776 and 1406 arterial segments in the CS-WBMRA and conventional-WBMRA group were evaluated. Qualitative image scores for 7 (of 15) vessel segments in the CS-WMBRA group had statistically significantly increased values compared to those of the conventional-WBMRA groups (P < 0.05). Scores from the other 8 segments showed similar image quality (P > 0.05) between the two protocols. In the quantitative analysis, overall apparent SNRs were significantly higher in the conventional-WBMRA group than in the CS-WBMRA group (214.98 ± 136.05 vs 164.90 ± 118.05; P < 0.001), while overall apparent CNRs were not significantly different in these two groups (CS vs conventional: 107.13 ± 72.323 vs 161.24 ± 118.64; P > 0.05). In the CS-WBMRA group, 7 of 1776 (0.4%) vessel segments were contaminated severely by venous enhancement, while in the convention-WBMRA group, 317 of 1406 (23%) were rated as severe contamination. In the CS-WBMRA group, total examination and reconstruction times were only 7