Laura Heacock1, Yiming Gao1, Samantha Heller1, Amy Melsaether1, Sungheon Kim1,2, and Linda Moy1
1Bernard and Irene Schwartz Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States, 2Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and Research (CAI2R), New York University School of Medicine, New York, NY, United States
Synopsis
GRASP DCE-MRI (Golden-angle Radial Sparse Parallel) DCE-MRI
allows simultaneous high spatial and temporal resolution. The purpose of this
study was to evaluate breast lesion conspicuity between GRASP and conventional
Cartesian sampling DCE-MRI. Readers assessed conspicuity of 48 biopsy-proven lesions
on conventional DCE-MRI and subsequent GRASP biopsy. No significant difference was
found between the two techniques for all lesions (p=0.21, p=0.19, p=0.46), masses
(p=1.0, p=0.48, p=0.7) or NME (p=0.18,p=0.08, p=0.64). There was strong reader
agreement in evaluating conspicuity (ICC=0.735). GRASP DCE-MRI is comparable to
conventional DCE-MRI imaging for masses and NME with diagnostic-quality high
spatial resolution and flexibility of temporal resolution. PURPOSE
Conventional dynamic contrast-enhanced breast (DCE) MRI
sequences require a tradeoff between spatial resolution and temporal
resolution. A novel DCE-MRI technique named GRASP (Golden-angle Radial Sparse
Parallel) MRI uses compressed sensing and parallel imaging to acquire
simultaneous high spatial and temporal resolution
1. Continuous golden-angle
radial acquisition allows high-resolution data acquired during a single
contrast injection to be reconstructed at any desired time point during the acquisition
time based on a set of consecutive radial spokes grouped around the given
time-point. This technique has been successfully demonstrated for breast
imaging at our institution with high-quality, low-artifact images as assessed
by breast radiologists
1,2. However, GRASP DCE-MRI has not yet been evaluated in
clinical practice for the assessment of lesion conspicuity compared to conventional
DCE-MRI with Cartesian sampling. The
purpose of this study was to evaluate lesion conspicuity between conventional
and GRASP DCE-MRI methods for benign and malignant lesions and by morphology
type.
METHODS
This HIPAA-compliant retrospective
study was conducted with 32 women with 48 biopsy-proven benign and malignant breast
lesions imaged consecutively between March and August 2015. This data set
consists of an enriched patient group with indeterminate breast lesions that
were subsequently biopsied. All patients underwent a conventional DCE-MRI exam
on a 3T whole-body MRI system (Siemens; Tim Trio) with a 7-channel breast coil
(Invivo) and a sagittal T1-weighted fat-suppressed 3D volumetric interpolated
breath-hold examination (VIBE) sequence (TR/TE, 4.01/1.52; flip angle, 12°;
matrix, 384 x 384; field of view, 270 mm; section thickness, 1mm) performed
before and after contrast injection. Subsequently, all women underwent MRI-guided
breast biopsy within one month using GRASP DCE-MRI with a fat-suppressed radial
“stack-of-stars” 3D FLASH sequence with golden-angle ordering (sagittal slab
orientation, field of view = 280 × 280 × 144 mm3, flip angle = 12°, TR/TE = 3.6/1.47 ms,
and bandwidth = 710 Hz/pixel). A total of 2280 spokes were acquired for each of
the 35 partitions during free breathing to cover one breast planned for biopsy.
Two-fold readout oversampling (512 sample points/spoke) was used to avoid
spurious aliasing along each spoke. The reconstructed image matrix size per
frame is 256 × 256 × 72 with zero padding along the slice direction. GRASP imaging was
reconstructed with 55 spokes (8.3 s/frame) as previously described.
2 Three breast
imagers evaluated each lesion at the second post-contrast time point (approximately
3 minutes) conventional VIBE subtracted images and the corresponding frame of the GRASP subtracted images (Figure 1) for conspicuity (1
to 5 point scale, 1=poor, 5=excellent), lesion morphology, enhancement and
BIRADS assessment. Pathologic correlation and statistical analysis was
performed.
RESULTS
Clinical indications for diagnostic breast MRI were:
30 for staging of known breast cancer and two high-risk screening. 24/48 (50%) biopsied lesions were nonmass
enhancement (NME); the other 24/48 (50%) were masses. 23/48 (48%) were
malignant (IDC, 7/23 (30%); ILC, 3/23 (13%); DCIS, 13/23 (57%)) (Figure 2).
Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to evaluate GRASP and VIBE lesion
conspicuity; there was no significant difference between the two sequences for
all readers (R1 p=0.21, R2 p=0.19, R3 p=0.46) (Figure 3), masses only (R1 p=1.0, R2 p=0.48,
R3 p=0.7) or NME (R1 p=0.18, R2 p=0.08, R3 p=0.64). Interclass correlation
coefficients demonstrated strong reader agreement in evaluating conspicuity (ICC=0.735;
95% CI: 0.627-0.815). For all three readers, conspicuity scores were higher for
masses than NME as assessed by Mann-Whitney U tests (R1=0.047, R2=0.023, R3=0.047).
Two of three readers rated benign
lesions as less conspicuous than malignant lesions as assessed by Mann-Whitney
U tests (R1 p=0.048, R2 p=0.04); the third reader had no significant difference
(R3 p=0.26).
DISCUSSION
GRASP DCE-MRI has demonstrated similar spatial image
quality to routine DCE-MRI when previously evaluated in body, breast and
head/neck imaging
1-4. However, image conspicuity
and morphology have not formally been assessed on a per-lesion basis compared
to diagnostic DCE-MRI. Breast MRI biopsies utilize compression, which has been
shown to reduce conspicuity of both masses and NME
5. However, our results demonstrate
biopsy GRASP images have no significant statistical difference in conspicuity
compared to conventional diagnostic DCE-MRI, with excellent inter-reader
agreement. Specifically, there was no significant difference between GRASP and conventional
VIBE DCE-MRI on a per lesion basis for masses, NME, benign or malignant lesions
within this enriched cohort.
CONCLUSION
GRASP DCE-MRI is comparable to conventional DCE-MRI
imaging for both masses and NME and provides diagnostic-quality high spatial
resolution with flexibility of temporal resolution.
Acknowledgements
No acknowledgement found.References
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