- Evaluation of Thick-Slab Overlapping MIP Images of Contrast-Enhanced 3D T1-Weighted CUBE for Detection of Intracranial Metastases: A Pilot Study for Comparison of Lesion Detection, Interpretation Time, and Sensitivity with Nonoverlapping CUBE MIP, CUBE, and Inversion-Recovery-Prepared Fast-Spoiled Gradient Recalled Brain Volume
The authors performed a retrospective review of 48 patients with cerebral metastases from June 2016 to October 2017. Brain MRIs included gadolinium-enhanced T1-weighted IR-FSPGR-BRAVO and CUBE, with subsequent generation of nonoverlapping CUBE MIP and overlapping CUBE MIP. Two blinded radiologists identified the total number and location of metastases on each image type. This study suggests that the use of overlapping CUBE MIP or nonoverlapping CUBE MIP for the detection of brain metastases can reduce interpretation time without sacrificing sensitivity, though the contrast-to-noise ratio of lesions is highest for overlapping CUBE MIP.
- Feasibility of a Synthetic MR Imaging Sequence for Spine Imaging
Thirty-eight patients with clinical indications of infectious, degenerative, and neoplastic disease underwent an MR imaging of the spine. The SyntAc sequence, with an acquisition time of 5 minutes 40 seconds, was added to the usual imaging protocol consisting of conventional sagittal T1 TSE, T2 TSE, and STIR TSE. The image quality was rated as “good” for both synthetic and conventional images. Interreader agreement concerning lesion conspicuity was good with a Cohen kappa of 0.737. The authors conclude that the study shows that synthetic MR imaging is feasible in spine imaging and produces, in general, good image quality and diagnostic confidence.