PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Longo, M.G.F.
AU  - Conklin, J.
AU  - Cauley, S.F.
AU  - Setsompop, K.
AU  - Tian, Q.
AU  - Polak, D.
AU  - Polackal, M.
AU  - Splitthoff, D.
AU  - Liu, W.
AU  - González, R.G.
AU  - Schaefer, P.W.
AU  - Kirsch, J.E.
AU  - Rapalino, O.
AU  - Huang, S.Y.
TI  - Evaluation of Ultrafast Wave-CAIPI MPRAGE for Visual Grading and Automated Measurement of Brain Tissue Volume
AID  - 10.3174/ajnr.A6703
DP  - 2020 Aug 01
TA  - American Journal of Neuroradiology
PG  - 1388--1396
VI  - 41
IP  - 8
4099  - http://www.ajnr.org/content/41/8/1388.short
4100  - http://www.ajnr.org/content/41/8/1388.full
SO  - Am. J. Neuroradiol.2020 Aug 01; 41
AB  - BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Volumetric brain MR imaging typically has long acquisition times. We sought to evaluate an ultrafast MPRAGE sequence based on Wave-CAIPI (Wave-MPRAGE) compared with standard MPRAGE for evaluation of regional brain tissue volumes.MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed scan-rescan experiments in 10 healthy volunteers to evaluate the intraindividual variability of the brain volumes measured using the standard and Wave-MPRAGE sequences. We then evaluated 43 consecutive patients undergoing brain MR imaging. Patients underwent 3T brain MR imaging, including a standard MPRAGE sequence (acceleration factor [R] = 2, acquisition time [TA] = 5.2 minutes) and an ultrafast Wave-MPRAGE sequence (R = 9, TA = 1.15 minutes for the 32-channel coil; R = 6, TA = 1.75 minutes for the 20-channel coil). Automated segmentation of regional brain volume was performed. Two radiologists evaluated regional brain atrophy using semiquantitative visual rating scales.RESULTS: The mean absolute symmetrized percent change in the healthy volunteers participating in the scan-rescan experiments was not statistically different in any brain region for both the standard and Wave-MPRAGE sequences. In the patients undergoing evaluation for neurodegenerative disease, the Dice coefficient of similarity between volumetric measurements obtained from standard and Wave-MPRAGE ranged from 0.86 to 0.95. Similarly, for all regions, the absolute symmetrized percent change for brain volume and cortical thickness showed <6% difference between the 2 sequences. In the semiquantitative visual comparison, the differences between the 2 radiologists’ scores were not clinically or statistically significant.CONCLUSIONS: Brain volumes estimated using ultrafast Wave-MPRAGE show low intraindividual variability and are comparable with those estimated using standard MPRAGE in patients undergoing clinical evaluation for suspected neurodegenerative disease.ASPCabsolute symmetrized percent changeVBMvoxel-based morphometry