Magnetic resonance imaging
-
Accurate pharmacokinetic (PK) modeling of dynamic contrast enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) in prostate cancer (PCa) requires knowledge of the concentration time course of the contrast agent in the feeding vasculature, the so-called arterial input function (AIF). The purpose of this study was to compare AIF choice in differentiating peripheral zone PCa from non-neoplastic prostatic tissue (NNPT), using PK analysis of high temporal resolution prostate DCE-MRI data and whole-mount pathology (WMP) validation. This prospective study was performed in 30 patients who underwent multiparametric endorectal prostate MRI at 3.0T and WMP validation. ⋯ Tumor cell density correlated with aAIF K(trans) (p=0.03). Our results indicate that DCE-MRI using both AIF methods is excellent in discriminating PCa from NNPT. If quantitative DCE-MRI is to be used as a biomarker in PCa, the same AIF method should be used consistently throughout the study.
-
In this study, we sought to investigate the feasibility of a new technique termed relaxation enhanced compressed sensing three-dimensional motion-sensitizing driven equilibrium prepared 3D rapid gradient echo sequence (RECS-3D MERGE). ⋯ RECS-3D MERGE technique achieved significant improvement in black-blood image quality compared with 3D MERGE. And the image quality of this 3D rapid carotid black-blood imaging technique is comparable to 2D T1W DIR-FSE while it has much higher scan efficiency.