Feasibility study of computed vs measured high b-value(1400 s/mm2) diffusion-weighted MR images of the prostate

AIM: To evaluate the impact of computed b = 1400 s/mm2(C-b1400) vs measured b = 1400 s/mm2(M-b1400) diffusion-weighted images(DWI) on lesion detection rate, image quality and quality of lesion demarcation using a modern 3T-MR system based on a small-field-of-view sequence(sFOV). METHODS: Thirty patients(PSA: 9.5 ± 8.7 ng/mL; 68 ± 12 years) referred for magnetic resonance imaging(MRI) of the prostate were enrolled in this study. All measurements were performed on a 3T MR system.For DWI, a single-shot EPI diffusion sequence(b = 0, 100, 400, 800 s/mm2) was utilized. C-b1400 was cal-culated voxelwise from the ADC and diffusion images. Additionally, M-b1400 was acquired for evaluation and comparison. Lesion detection rate and maximum lesion diameters were obtained and compared. Image quality and quality of lesion demarcation were rated accord-ing to a 5-point Likert-type scale. Ratios of lesion-to-bladder as well as prostate-to-bladder signal intensity(SI) were calculated to estimate the signal-to-noise-ratio(SNR). RESULTS: Twenty-four lesions were detected on M-b1400 images and compared to C-b1400 images. C-b1400 detected three additional cancer suspicious lesions. Overall image quality was rated significantly better and SI ratios were significantly higher on C-b1400(2.3 ± 0.8 vs 3.1 ± 1.0, P < 0.001; 5.6 ± 1.8 vs 2.8 ± 0.9, P < 0.001). Comparison of lesion size showed no significant differences between C- and M-b1400(P = 0.22). CONCLUSION: Combination of a high b-value extrap-olation and sFOV may contribute to increase diagnostic accuracy of DWI without an increase of acquisition time, which may be useful to guide targeted prostate biopsies and to improve quality of multiparametric MRI(mMRI) especially under economical aspects in a pri-vate practice setting.

Non-rigid registration and KLT filter to improve SNR and CNR in GRE-EPI myocardial perfusion imaging

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the effect of motion compensation by non-rigid registration combined with the Karhunen-Loeve Transform (KLT) filter on the signal to noise (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of hybrid gradient-echo echoplanar (GRE-EPI) first-pass myocardial perfusion imaging. Twenty one consecutive first-pass adenosine stress perfusion MR data sets interpreted positive for ischemia or infarction were processed by non-rigid Registration followed by KLT filtering. SNR and CNR were measured in abnormal and normal myocardium in unfiltered and KLT filtered images following nonrigid registration to compensate for respiratory and other motions. Image artifacts introduced by filtering in registered and nonregistered images were evaluated by two observers. There was a statistically sig- nificant increase in both SNR and CNR between normal and abnormal myocardium with KLT filtering (mean SNR increased by 62.18% ± 21.05% and mean CNR increased by 58.84% ± 18.06%;p = 0.01). Motion correction prior to KLT filtering reduced significantly the occurrence of filter induced artifacts (KLT only-artifacts in 42 out of 55 image series vs. registered plus KLT-artifacts in 3 out of 55 image series). In conclusion the combination of non-rigid registration and KLT filtering was shown to increase the SNR and CNR of GRE-EPI perfusion images. Subjective evaluation of image artifacts revealed that prior motion compensation significantly reduced the artifacts introduced by the KLT filtering process.

为心肌的梗塞的心脏的计算断层摄影术 angiography 的诊断精确性

AIM:To investigate diagnostic accuracy of high,low and mixed voltage dual energy computed tomography(DECT) for detection of prior myocardial infarction(MI).METHODS:Twenty-four consecutive patients(88% male,mean age 65 ± 11 years old) with clinically documented prior MI(】 6 mo) were prospectively recruited to undergo late phase DECT for characterization of their MI.Computed tomography(CT) examinations were performed using a dual source CT system(64-slice Definition or 128-slice Definition FLASH,Siemens Healthcare) with initial first pass and 10 min late phase image acquisitions.Using the 17-segment model,regional systolic function was analyzed using first pass CT as normal or abnormal(hypokinetic,akinetic,dyskinetic).Regions with abnormal systolic function were identified as infarct segments.Late phase DE scans were reconstructed into:140 kVp,100 kVp,mixed(120 kVp) images and iodine-only datasets.Using the same 17-segment model,each dataset was evaluated for possible(grade 2) or definite(grade 3) late phase myocardial enhancement abnormalities.Logistic regression for correlated data was used to compare reconstructions in terms of the accuracy for detecting infarct segments using late myocardial hyperenhancement scores.RESULTS:All patients reported prior history of documented myocardial infarction,with most occurring more than 5 years prior(n = 18;75% of cohort).Fiftyfive of 408(13%) segments demonstrated abnormal wall motion and were classified as infarct.The remaining 353 segments were classified as non-infarcted segments.A total of 1692 segments were analyzed for late phase enhancement abnormalities,with 91(5.5%) segments not interpretable due to artifact.Combined grades 2 and 3 compared to grade 3 only enhancement abnormalities demonstrated significantly higher sensitivity and similar specificity for detection of infarct segments for all reconstructions evaluated.Evaluation of different voltage acquisitions demonstrated the highest diagnostic performance for the 100 kVp reconstruction which had higher diagnostic accuracy(87%;95%CI:80%-90%),sensitivity(86%-93%;95%CI:54%-78%) and specificity(90%;95%CI:86%-93%) compared to the other reconstructions.For sensitivity,there were significant differences noted between 100 kVp vs 140 kVp(P【0.0005),100 kVp vs mixed(P【0.0001),and 100 kVp vs iodine only(P【0.005) using combined grade 2 and grade 3 perfusion abnormalities.For specificity,there were significant differences noted between 100 kVp vs 140 kVp(P【0.005),and 100 kVp vs mixed(P【0.01) using combined grades 2 and 3 perfusion abnormalities.CONCLUSION:Low voltage acquisition CT,100 kVp in this study,demonstrates superior diagnostic performance when compared to higher and mixed voltage acquisitions for detection of prior MI.

Filtered Backprojection Reconstruction with Depth-Dependent Filtering

A direct filtered-backprojection （FBP） reconstruction algorithm is presented for circular cone-beam computed tomography （CB-CT） that allows the filter operation to be applied efficiently with shift-variant band-pass characteristics on the kernel function. Our algorithm is derived from the ramp-filter based FBP method of Feldkamp et al. and obtained by decomposing the ramp filtering into a convolution involving the Hilbert kernel （global operation） and a subsequent differentiation operation （local operation）. The differentiation is implemented as a finite difference of two （Hilbert filtered） data samples and carried out as part of the backprojection step. The spacing between the two samples, which defines the low-pass characteristics of the filter operation, can thus be selected individually for each point in the image volume. We here define the sample spacing to follow the magnification of the divergent-beam geometry and thus obtain a novel, depth-dependent filtering algorithm for circular CB-CT. We evaluate this resulting algorithm using computer-simulated CB data and demonstrate that our algorithm yields results where spatial resolution and image noise are distributed much more uniformly over the field-of-view, compared to Feldkamp＇s approach.