RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Clinical Evaluation of a 2-Minute Ultrafast Brain MR Protocol for Evaluation of Acute Pathology in the Emergency and Inpatient Settings
JF American Journal of Neuroradiology
JO Am. J. Neuroradiol.
FD American Society of Neuroradiology
SP 379
OP 385
DO 10.3174/ajnr.A8143
VO 45
IS 4
A1 Lang, Min
A1 Clifford, Bryan
A1 Lo, Wei-Ching
A1 Applewhite, Brooks P.
A1 Tabari, Azadeh
A1 Filho, Augusto Lio M. Goncalves
A1 Hosseini, Zahra
A1 Longo, Maria Gabriela Figueiro
A1 Cauley, Stephen F.
A1 Setsompop, Kawin
A1 Bilgic, Berkin
A1 Feiweier, Thorsten
A1 Lev, Michael H.
A1 Schaefer, Pamela W.
A1 Rapalino, Otto
A1 Huang, Susie Y.
A1 Conklin, John
YR 2024
UL http://www.ajnr.org/content/45/4/379.abstract
AB BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: The use of MR imaging in emergency settings has been limited by availability, long scan times, and sensitivity to motion. This study assessed the diagnostic performance of an ultrafast brain MR imaging protocol for evaluation of acute intracranial pathology in the emergency department and inpatient settings.MATERIALS AND METHODS: Sixty-six adult patients who underwent brain MR imaging in the emergency department and inpatient settings were included in the study. All patients underwent both the reference and the ultrafast brain MR protocols. Both brain MR imaging protocols consisted of T1-weighted, T2/T2*-weighted, FLAIR, and DWI sequences. The ultrafast MR images were reconstructed by using a machine-learning assisted framework. All images were reviewed by 2 blinded neuroradiologists.RESULTS: The average acquisition time was 2.1 minutes for the ultrafast brain MR protocol and 10 minutes for the reference brain MR protocol. There was 98.5% agreement on the main clinical diagnosis between the 2 protocols. In head-to-head comparison, the reference protocol was preferred in terms of image noise and geometric distortion (P < .05 for both). The ultrafast ms-EPI protocol was preferred over the reference protocol in terms of reduced motion artifacts (P < .01). Overall diagnostic quality was not significantly different between the 2 protocols (P > .05).CONCLUSIONS: The ultrafast brain MR imaging protocol provides high accuracy for evaluating acute pathology while only requiring a fraction of the scan time. Although there was greater image noise and geometric distortion on the ultrafast brain MR protocol images, there was significant reduction in motion artifacts with similar overall diagnostic quality between the 2 protocols.EPIMixmulticontrast echo-planar imagingms-EPImultishot echo-planar imagingss-EPIsingle-shot echo-planar imaging