The Feasibility of a Fast Liver MRI Protocol for Lesion Detection of Adults at 3.0-T

Jing Li; Chao Ma; Yukun Chen; Caixia Fu; Xinrui Wang; Bernd Kuehn; Qingsong Yang; Jianping Lu

doi:10.3389/fonc.2021.586343

The Feasibility of a Fast Liver MRI Protocol for Lesion Detection of Adults at 3.0-T

Front Oncol. 2021 Aug 4:11:586343. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2021.586343. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Jing Li¹, Chao Ma¹, Yukun Chen¹, Caixia Fu², Xinrui Wang¹, Bernd Kuehn³, Qingsong Yang¹, Jianping Lu¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology, Changhai Hospital of Shanghai, Naval Medical University, Shanghai, China.
² Application Developments, Siemens Shenzhen Magnetic Resonance Ltd., Shenzhen, China.
³ Oncology Applications Predevelopment, Siemens Healthcare, Erlangen, Germany.

Abstract

Purpose: To investigate the feasibility of a fast liver magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) protocol for lesion detection in adults using 3.0-T MRI.

Methods: A fast liver MRI exam protocol was proposed. The protocol included motion-resistant coronal T2-w sequence, axial T2-w fast spin echo sequence with fat suppression, axial in-op phase gradient recalled echo (GRE) T1, axial diffusion weighted imaging (DWI), and axial contrast-enhanced T1 sequences. To evaluate the diagnostic capacity of the proposed protocol, 31 consecutive patients (20 males and 11 females; mean age, 53.2 years) underwent a liver MRI exam with conventional sequences, including the proposed protocol as a subset. Images from the conventional protocol and extracted abbreviated protocol were independently read, and the diagnostic concordance rate was assessed for each patient. The concordance analysis is presented as the proportion of concordant cases between the two protocols.

Results: The net measurement time of the fast liver MRI protocol without adjustment and waiting time were 4 min and 28 s. In the 31 patients included in this study, 139 suspicious findings were found from both the conventional liver MR protocol and the fast liver MRI protocol. The diagnostic concordance rate was 96.4%.

Conclusions: The fast liver MRI protocol is feasible at 3.0-T, with a shorter exam time and high diagnostic concordance compared to the conventional liver MRI workflow.

Keywords: Fast; MRI; auto; liver; workflow.