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Alleviating artifacts in 1H MRI thermometry by single scan spatiotemporal encoding

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Abstract

Objective

Recent years have seen an increased interest in combining MRI thermometry with devices capable of destroying malignancies by heat ablation. Expected from the MR protocols are accurate and fast thermal characterizations, providing real time feedback on restricted tissue volumes and/or rapidly moving organs like liver. This article explores the potential advantages of relying on spatiotemporally encoded (SPEN) sequences for retrieving real-time thermometric images based on the water’s proton resonance frequency (PRF) shifts.

Materials and methods

Hybrid spatiotemporal/k-space encoding single-scan MRI experiments were implemented on animal and human scanners, and their abilities to deliver single- and multi-slice real-time thermometric measurements based on PRF-derived phase maps in phantoms and in vivo, were compared against echo planar imaging (EPI) and gradient-echo counterparts.

Results

Under comparable acquisition conditions, SPEN exhibited advantages vis-à-vis EPI in terms of dealing with inhomogeneous magnetic field distortions, with shifts arising due to changes in the central frequency offsets, with PRF distributions, and for zooming into restricted fields-of-view without special pulse sequence provisions.

Conclusion

This work confirms the ability of SPEN sequences, particularly when implemented under fully-refocused conditions, to exploit their built-in robustness to shift- and field-derived inhomogeneities for monitoring thermal changes in real-time under in vitro and in vivo conditions.

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Abbreviations

MRI:

Magnetic resonance imaging

NMR:

Nuclear magnetic resonance

FOV:

Field of view

FT:

Fourier transform

SPEN:

SPatio-temporal ENcoding

PRF:

Proton resonance frequency

STD:

Standard deviation

SNR:

Signal-to-noise ratio

SR:

Super-resolution

SAR:

Specific absorption rate

RF:

Radio frequency

RO:

Readout

PE:

Phase-encode

SS:

Slice-select

TE:

Echo time

TR:

Repetition time

EPI:

Echo-planar imaging

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Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Dr. Noam Ben-Eliezer for help in the initial stages of this work, and to Koby Zibzener and Talia Harris for their help in setting up the experiments. This research was supported by the Israel Science Foundation (ISF 447/09), the Minerva Foundation (Project 710587; Federal German Ministry for Education and Research), a Helen and Martin Kimmel Award for Innovative Investigation, and the generosity of the Perlman Family Foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemical Physics Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100, Rehovot, Israel

    Rita Schmidt & Lucio Frydman

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  1. Rita Schmidt
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  2. Lucio Frydman
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Correspondence to Lucio Frydman.

Electronic supplementary material

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10334_2013_372_MOESM1_ESM.docx

Magnitude images (top row) and temperature maps derived from spin-echo EPI and Hybrid SPEN thermometry experiments in an inhomogeneous environment. Distortions in Bo were achieved by placing a titanium non-magnetic plate next to bigger water tube; a smaller one kept at constant temperature and a bigger one undergoing cooling. The vertical progression shows temperature maps at time = 0, 3, 10 min into the process. Common scan parameters: FOVs = 25 mm, resolution 0.35 × 0.35 mm (pixel matrix 70 × 70), τo = 5 ms, Tacq = 30.8 ms. For the 90° chirp Hybrid SPEN Texc = 26.8 ms, Gexc = 0.92 G/cm. (DOCX 539 kb)

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Schmidt, R., Frydman, L. Alleviating artifacts in 1H MRI thermometry by single scan spatiotemporal encoding. Magn Reson Mater Phy 26, 477–490 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10334-013-0372-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10334-013-0372-9

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