• Bram F Coolen, Jasper Schoormans, Guillaume Gilbert, Ernst S Kooreman, Naomi de Winter, Olivia Viessmann, ZwanenburgJaco J MJJM0000-0002-4282-5719Department of Radiology, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands., MajoieCharles B L MCBLMDepartment of Radiology & Nuclear Medicine, Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands., Gustav J Strijkers, Aart J Nederveen, and Jeroen C W Siero.
• Department of Biomedical Engineering & Physics, Amsterdam UMC, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
• NMR Biomed. 2021 Sep 1; 34 (9): e4567.

AbstractThe purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of a double delay alternating with nutation for tailored excitation (D-DANTE)-prepared sequence for banding-free isotropic high-resolution intracranial vessel wall imaging (IC-VWI) and to compare its performance with regular DANTE in terms of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as well as cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and blood suppression efficiency. To this end, a D-DANTE-prepared 3D turbo spin echo sequence was implemented by interleaving two separate DANTE pulse trains with different RF phase-cycling schemes, but keeping all other DANTE parameters unchanged, including the total number of pulses and total preparation time. This achieved a reduction of the banding distance compared with regular DANTE enabling banding-free imaging up to higher resolutions. Bloch simulations assuming static vessel wall and flowing CSF spins were performed to compare DANTE and D-DANTE in terms of SNR and vessel wall/CSF contrast. Similar image quality measures were assessed from measurements on 13 healthy middle-aged volunteers. Both simulation and in vivo results showed that D-DANTE had only slightly lower vessel wall/CSF and vessel wall/blood contrast-to-noise ratio values compared with regular DANTE, which originated from a 10%-15% reduction in vessel wall SNR but not from reduced CSF or blood suppression efficiency. As anticipated, IC-VWI acquisitions showed that D-DANTE can successfully remove banding artifacts compared with regular DANTE with equal scan time or DANTE preparation length. Moreover, application was demonstrated in a patient with an intracranial aneurysm, indicating improved robustness to slow flow artifacts compared with clinically available 3D turbo spin echo scans. In conclusion, D-DANTE provides banding artifact-free IC-VWI up to higher isotropic resolutions compared with regular DANTE. This allows for a more flexible choice of DANTE preparation parameters in high-resolution IC-VWI protocols.© 2021 The Authors. NMR in Biomedicine published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

4 keywords...

hide…