RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Feasibility of a Synthetic MR Imaging Sequence for Spine Imaging
JF American Journal of Neuroradiology
JO Am. J. Neuroradiol.
FD American Society of Neuroradiology
SP 1756
OP 1763
DO 10.3174/ajnr.A5728
VO 39
IS 9
A1 M.I. Vargas
A1 M. Drake-Pérez
A1 B.M.A Delattre
A1 J. Boto
A1 K.-O. Lovblad
A1 S. Boudabous
YR 2018
UL http://www.ajnr.org/content/39/9/1756.abstract
AB BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Synthetic MR imaging is a method that can produce multiple contrasts from a single sequence, as well as quantitative maps. Our aim was to determine the feasibility of a synthetic MR image for spine imaging.MATERIALS AND METHODS: Thirty-eight patients with clinical indications of infectious, degenerative, and neoplastic disease underwent an MR imaging of the spine (11 cervical, 8 dorsal, and 19 lumbosacral MR imaging studies). 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.RESULTS: Synthetic T1-weighted, T2-weighted, and STIR images were of adequate quality, and the acquisition time was 53% less than with conventional MR imaging. The image quality was rated as “good” for both synthetic and conventional images. Interreader agreement concerning lesion conspicuity was good with a Cohen κ of 0.737. Artifacts consisting of white pixels/spike noise across contrast views, as well as flow artifacts, were more common in the synthetic sequences, particularly in synthetic STIR. There were no statistically significant differences between readers concerning the scores assigned for image quality or lesion conspicuity.CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that synthetic MR imaging is feasible in spine imaging and produces, in general, good image quality and diagnostic confidence. Furthermore, the non-negligible time savings and the ability to obtain quantitative measurements as well as to generate several contrasts with a single acquisition should promise a bright future for synthetic MR imaging in clinical routine.