Investigative radiology
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Investigative radiology · Mar 2010
Image fusion in dual energy computed tomography for detection of hypervascular liver hepatocellular carcinoma: phantom and preliminary studies.
This study was designed to determine the optimal blending method and parameters to fuse computed tomography (CT) data sets with different energy levels in dual-energy CT (DECT) for the detection of hypervascular liver lesions. ⋯ Linear blended images with a higher weighting factor than 0.5 and nonlinear blended images with a wide width are able to provide improved lesion-to-liver CNR over the standard linear blending method (with a weighting factor of 0.3). Furthermore, the linear blending method with a low level and a high width provided the most preferred image set for hypervascular hepatocellular carcinoma detection by our radiologists.
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Investigative radiology · Mar 2010
Multicenter Study Comparative StudyDetection and characterization of focal liver lesions: a Japanese phase III, multicenter comparison between gadoxetic acid disodium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging and contrast-enhanced computed tomography predominantly in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and chronic liver disease.
To prospectively evaluate the safety and efficacy of combined unenhanced and gadoxetic acid disodium (Gd-EOB-DTPA)-enhanced magnetic resonance (MR) imaging compared with unenhanced MR imaging and triphasic contrast-enhanced spiral computed tomography (CT) for the detection and characterization of focal liver lesions. ⋯ In this study, hepatocyte-specific Gd-EOB-DTPA was shown to be safe and to improve the detection and characterization of focal hepatic lesions compared with unenhanced MR imaging. When compared with spiral CT, Gd-EOB-DTPA enhanced MRI seems to be beneficial especially for the detection for smaller lesions or hepatocellular carcinoma underlying cirrhotic liver.
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Investigative radiology · Mar 2010
Handling a high relaxivity contrast material for dynamic breast MR imaging using higher thresholds for the initial enhancement.
To increase specificity of gadobenate dimeglumine-enhanced breast magnetic resonance (MR) imaging without losing sensitivity. ⋯ Specificity of gadobenate dimeglumine-enhanced breast MR imaging can be increased without limiting its high sensitivity.