Abstract
Purpose: To assess a 3D radial balanced steady-state free precession (SSFP) technique that provides submillimeter isotropic resolution and inherently registered fat and water image volumes in comparison to conventional T2-weighted RARE imaging for lesion characterization in breast magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Materials and Methods: 3D projection SSFP (3DPR-SSFP) combines a dual half-echo radial k-space trajectory with a linear combination fat/water separation technique (linear combination SSFP). A pilot study was performed in 20 patients to assess fat suppression and depiction of lesion morphology using 3DPR-SSFP. For all patients fat suppression was measured for the 3DPR-SSFP image volumes and depiction of lesion morphology was compared against corresponding T2-weighted fast spin echo (FSE) datasets for 15 lesions in 11 patients. Results: The isotropic 0.63 mm resolution of the 3DPRSSFP sequence demonstrated improved depiction of lesion morphology in comparison to FSE. The 3DPR-SSFP fat and water datasets were available in a 5-minute scan time while average fat suppression with 3DPR-SSFP was 71% across all 20 patients. Conclusion: 3DPR-SSFP has the potential to improve the lesion characterization information available in breast MRI, particularly in comparison to conventional FSE. A larger study is warranted to quantify the effect of 3DPRSSFP on specificity.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 135-144 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging |
Volume | 30 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 1 2009 |
Keywords
- Breast imaging
- bSSFP
- Cancer imaging
- LC-SSFP
- Radial acquisition
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging