Consistent intensity inhomogeneity correction in water-fat MRI

J Magn Reson Imaging. 2015 Aug;42(2):468-76. doi: 10.1002/jmri.24778. Epub 2014 Oct 30.

Abstract

Purpose: To quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate the water-signal performance of the consistent intensity inhomogeneity correction (CIIC) method to correct for intensity inhomogeneities

Methods: Water-fat volumes were acquired using 1.5 Tesla (T) and 3.0T symmetrically sampled 2-point Dixon three-dimensional MRI. Two datasets: (i) 10 muscle tissue regions of interest (ROIs) from 10 subjects acquired with both 1.5T and 3.0T whole-body MRI. (ii) Seven liver tissue ROIs from 36 patients imaged using 1.5T MRI at six time points after Gd-EOB-DTPA injection. The performance of CIIC was evaluated quantitatively by analyzing its impact on the dispersion and bias of the water image ROI intensities, and qualitatively using side-by-side image comparisons.

Results: CIIC significantly ( P1.5T≤2.3×10-4,P3.0T≤1.0×10-6) decreased the nonphysiological intensity variance while preserving the average intensity levels. The side-by-side comparisons showed improved intensity consistency ( Pint⁡≤10-6) while not introducing artifacts ( Part=0.024) nor changed appearances ( Papp≤10-6).

Conclusion: CIIC improves the spatiotemporal intensity consistency in regions of a homogenous tissue type.

Keywords: Dixon imaging; fat quantification; inhomogeneity correction; intensity correction; water; water-fat imaging.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Adipose Tissue / anatomy & histology*
  • Adult
  • Artifacts*
  • Body Water / metabolism*
  • Humans
  • Image Enhancement / methods
  • Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / methods
  • Imaging, Three-Dimensional / methods
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging / methods*
  • Male
  • Muscle, Skeletal / anatomy & histology*
  • Muscle, Skeletal / metabolism*
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Sensitivity and Specificity
  • Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted
  • Subtraction Technique