International Journal of Health Sciences

Feasibility Study of Flow Compensation to Improve Diagnostic Quality of T1 Post Contrast Spin Echo MRI Through the Posterior Fossa
Matthew F. Covington, Gagandeep Choudhary, Anthony S. Jedd, Puneet Sharma, Kambiz Nael, Elizabeth AKrupinski, Rihan Khan

Abstract
Purpose : Pulsation related artifacts commonly occur in the posterior fossa on brain MRI secondary to pulsation from the arteries and dural sinusesat the skull base. The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of flow compensation (FC) pulsation artifact reduction in the posterior fossa on post-contrast imaging as rated by two blinded neuroradiologists. Methods: T1 post-contrast images of the brain with and without FC were obtained on a subset of patients undergoing brain MRI from August 1, 2013 to October 1, 2013.Over two reading sessions, two blinded neuroradiologists retrospectively scored each non-FC and FC post-contrast T1 sequence on a four-point scale as follows: 4: None to minimal pulsation artifact. 3: Mild flow artifact. 2: Prominent pulsation artifact. 1: Poor image quality, not interpretable. Results: Twenty-five of 42 studies (60%) were rated as demonstrating prominent pulsation artifact (score =2) in non-FC technique versus 6/42 studies (14%) in the FC group.For non-FC cases 17/42 (40%) received a score of 3 or 4 whereas 36/42 cases utilizing FC (85%) received a score >=3.The image quality score was statistically significantly higher (F=106.502, p <0.0001) for FC technique compared to non-FC technique. The Spearman rank correlation and 95% CI for image quality scores between readers were 0.64, 95% CI 0.25-0.73 for FC and 0.56, 95% CI 0.20-0.67 for non-FC technique. Conclusion: This retrospective study by blinded neuroradiologist readers suggests that FC algorithms significantly reduced pulsation artifact in the posterior fossa on visual assessment.

Full Text: PDF     DOI: 10.15640/ijhs.v5n1a5