Synopsis
This lecture presents the main data acquisition
and image reconstruction techniques for DCE-MRI and DSC-MRI, and discusses strengths,
limitations and opportunities.
Objectives
- Describe pulse sequences and
parameters used for DCE and DSC MRI data acquisition
- Study the application of
acceleration techniques that exploit spatiotemporal correlations to DCE and DSC
MRI
Introduction
The use of dynamic MRI techniques to track the
passage of an external contrast agent has become an essential tool for tumor
detection, characterization and treatment response. One significant strength is
that quantitative information can be obtained using spatiotemporal data fitting
with a pharmacokinetic model. Two of the most common methods are dynamic
contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) and dynamic susceptibility contrast MRI
(DSC-MRI). DCE-MRI acquires a series of T1-weighted images and is widely used
for diagnosis of cancer (1). DSC-MRI methods use T2*-weighting to acquire
dynamic information and are usually used for brain tumors (2). Both DCE and DSC
require fast imaging to enable adequate combinations of temporal resolution to
track the contrast agent passage, spatial resolution and volumetric coverage. The
existence of a temporal dimension offers the great opportunity to apply
compressed sensing techniques to exploit the inherent correlations among time
points (3-5). This lecture presents a brief overview of pulse sequences and
image reconstruction techniques of DCE-MRI and DCS-MRI. Special focus is given
to accelerated imaging techniques that optimize the acquisition by exploiting
spatiotemporal correlations.Dynamic Contrast Enhanced (DCE) MRI
DCE-MRI exploits the relaxivity effect of the
contrast agent and is usually performed with fast T1-weighted gradient echo
pulse sequences. Standard gradient echo sequences can provide a moderate degree
of T1-weighting, but pre-pulses such as saturation (90o) or
inversion (180o) allow a significantly higher T1-weighting to be achieved
(6). Significant improvements in temporal and spatial resolution, and motion robustness
can be achieved using compressed sensing techniques (7-9). New trends in
compressed sensing DCE-MRI are including the pharmacokinetic model in the
reconstruction algorithm to directly estimate parameters from undersampled
k-space data (10).Dynamic Susceptibility Contrast (DSC) MRI
DSC-MRI exploits the susceptibility effect of
the contrast agent and is usually performed with single-shot echo-planar
imaging (EPI) pulse sequences, which are sensitive to T2* (due to long
effective TE) and fast enough to track the passage of the contrast agent (6).
The impact of compressed sensing in DSC-MRI is lower than in DCE-MRI, which is
due in part to the challenges to randomly undersample EPI acquisitions. Other
acceleration techniques, such as spatiotemporal parallel imaging with
PEAK-GRAPPA (11) and simultaneous multislice (SMS) (12), are more promising to
increase the performance of DSC-MRI.Acknowledgements
Center for Advanced Imaging Innovation and
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