Objective: Compressed sensing (CS) acceleration has been theorized for slice encoding for metal artifact correction (SEMAC), but has not been shown to be feasible. Therefore, we tested the hypothesis that CS-SEMAC is feasible for MRI of metal-on-metal hip resurfacing implants.
Materials and methods: Following prospective institutional review board approval, 22 subjects with metal-on-metal hip resurfacing implants underwent 1.5 T MRI. We compared CS-SEMAC prototype, high-bandwidth TSE, and SEMAC sequences with acquisition times of 4-5, 4-5 and 10-12 min, respectively. Outcome measures included bone-implant interfaces, image quality, periprosthetic structures, artifact size, and signal- and contrast-to-noise ratios (SNR and CNR). Using Friedman, repeated measures analysis of variances, and Cohen's weighted kappa tests, Bonferroni-corrected p-values of 0.005 and less were considered statistically significant.
Results: There was no statistical difference of outcomes measures of SEMAC and CS-SEMAC images. Visibility of implant-bone interfaces and pseudocapsule as well as fat suppression and metal reduction were "adequate" to "good" on CS-SEMAC and "non-diagnostic" to "adequate" on high-BW TSE (p < 0.001, respectively). SEMAC and CS-SEMAC showed mild blur and ripple artifacts. The metal artifact size was 63 % larger for high-BW TSE as compared to SEMAC and CS-SEMAC (p < 0.0001, respectively). CNRs were sufficiently high and statistically similar, with the exception of CNR of fluid and muscle and CNR of fluid and tendon, which were higher on intermediate-weighted high-BW TSE (p < 0.005, respectively).
Conclusion: Compressed sensing acceleration enables the time-neutral use of SEMAC for MRI of metal-on-metal hip resurfacing implants when compared to high-BW TSE and image quality similar to conventional SEMAC.
Keywords: Compressed sensing; Hip; MARS; MRI; Metal-on-metal; Resurfacing arthroplasty; SEMAC; Sparsity.