Feasibility of free-breathing dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI of the abdomen: A comparison between CAIPIRINHAVIBE, Radial-VIBE with KWIC reconstruction and conventional VIBE

Objective: To evaluate the feasibilities of controlled aliasing in parallel imaging results in higher acceleration with volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination (CAIPIRINHA-VIBE), radial acquisition of VIBE (Radial-VIBE) with k-space-weighted image contrast (KWIC) reconstruction (KWIC-Radial-VIBE) and conventional-VIBE (c-VIBE) for free-breathing dynamic contrastenhanced (DCE)-MRI of the abdomen. Methods: 23 prospectively enrolled patients underwent DCE-MRI of the abdomen with CAIPIRINHA-VIBE (n510), KWIC-Radial-VIBE (n56) or c-VIBE (n57). Qualitative image quality of the DCE-MR images and perfusion maps was independently scored by two abdominal radiologists using a 5-point scale (from 1, uninterpretable, to 5, very good). For quantitative analysis, the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the liver and goodness-of-fit (GOF) of the time-intensity curve were measured. Results: In the three tested sequences, DCE-MRI had good temporal (5s) and spatial resolution (1.4831.4834mm/ voxel). Interobserver agreement in the qualitative analysis was good (?50.753; 95% confidence interval, 0.610-0.895). Therefore, the mean scores were used in the data analysis. Overall image quality was comparable between CAIPIRINHA-VIBE (3.5260.55) and KWICRadial-VIBE (3.7260.37; p51.000), and both were significantly better than c-VIBE (2.7160.34; p,0.001). Perfusion map quality score was highest with KWICRadial-VIBE (4.3360.65), followed by CAIPIRINHA-VIBE (3.7060.73) and c-VIBE (3.1460.66), but without statistical significance between CAIPIRINHA-VIBE and KWIC-Radial-VIBE (p50.167). The SNR of the liver and GOF of the time-intensity curve did not significantly differ between the three sequences (p50.116 and 0.224, respectively). Conclusion: CAIPIRINHA-VIBE and KWIC-Radial-VIBE provide comparably better performance than c-VIBE. Both can be feasible sequences with acceptable good image quality for free-breathing DCE-MRI.