Purpose: To evaluate the information available from a single MRI acquisition for a complete MRI-based simulation in brain.
Method and materials: A 3.0T MRI scanner (Achieva TX, Philips Healthcare) was used to acquire a complete brain simulation data set in a single acquisition on four consenting volunteers. The acquisition consisted of collecting the FID signal (TE1 = 100μs) followed by two additional gradient echoes (TE2/TE3= 1.4ms/2.5ms) using a 3D volumetric excitation and radial read-out toachieve 1.3mm isotropic voxels. The data from this single acquisition was used to reconstruct five volumetric data sets: Bone-enhanced, fat-only, water-only, in-phase and out-of-phase. The resulting image sets were assessed for image quality sufficient for organ delineation and used to generate digitally-reconstructed radiographs (DRRs) (Pinnacle Workstation, Philips Healthcare).
Results: Each volunteer study took less than 10 minutes to complete, and the single acquisition required less than 3 minutes. Images from all four volunteers had excellent image quality sufficient for organ delineation and complete cortical bone segmentation. In addition, the DDRs for all four volunteers were sufficient for 2D patient matching.
Conclusion: This study confirms the feasibility of using a single acquisition MRI as a sole imaging modality for treatment planning simulation in the brain. To validate this method, we plan to use this imaging protocol in a group of patients and compare the DRRs and dose plans with those acquired during CT simulation. Both authors are employees of Philips Healthcare.
Keywords: Anatomy; Brain; Data sets; Digital radiography; Image quality assessment; Magnetic resonance imaging; Medical image quality; Medical image segmentation; Medical imaging; Neural information.
© 2012 American Association of Physicists in Medicine.