Enhancement of liver and pancreas on late hepatic arterial phase Imaging: Quantitative comparison among multiple gadolinium-based contrast agents at 1.5 tesla MRI

Abstract

Our study describes % enhancement of liver and pancreas using various GBCAs. The data may provide reference material on relaxation properties of GBCAs in vivo.

Surrogate arterial phase imaging using a long duration (≈1.5 min) radial acquisition T1-weighted sequence: an alternative in patients unable to breath-hold

“…The relatively low specific organ percent enhancement compared to other studies (1,25,26) possibly reflects the hybrid nature of the final images combining data across multiple phases: pre-contrast, immediate post-injection, hepatic arterial, and early portal venous phases, which may lead to a lower percent enhancement. However, we do not believe that direct quantitative comparison between these two sequences would be essentially valid because, as they represent two different GRE techniques, and due to the fact that our proposed approach is hybrid in nature and not intended to replace the gold standard Cartesian sequence in patients who are able to breath hold.…”

“…In current magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) practice, the most commonly employed sequence in abdominal imaging for data acquisition following gadolinium administration is a breath-hold Cartesian three-dimensional gradient echo (3D-GRE) sequence (1). This sequence is often performed with parallel imaging facilitating acquisition of high quality images with average breath-hold times of 15–19 s. However, previous studies have shown that as many as 7% of patients undergoing abdominal MRI are unable to hold their breath for 15 s or more (2,3).…”

Optimized imaging of the lower abdomen and pelvic region in hepatocyte-specific MRI: evaluation of a whole-abdomen first-pass shuttle protocol in patients with neuroendocrine neoplasms

“…Gd-EOB, with just one-quarter amount of Gd per administration partially compensated for by a greater T1-relaxivity due to a higher rate of plasma protein binding (11) has a lesser total T1-shortening effect than ECCM and Gd-BOPTA in the perfused compartment. This results in a lower extrahepatic parenchymal contrast enhancement in Gd-EOB MRI than in ECCM MRI in the upper abdomen (10–12,14). Nevertheless, extrahepatic evaluation of the upper abdominal organs, especially of the pancreas and lymph nodes, is routinely performed in Gd-EOB MRI of the liver and good results regarding detection and differentiation of, for example, pancreatic neoplasms including neuroendocrine tumors, have been published (15,16).…”

“…In fact, Gd-EOB achieves relatively good tissue contrasts in the extrahepatic upper abdomen during the first-pass contrast phases of dynamic liver acquisition (10). However, if the lower abdomen is intended to be included to perform a whole abdominal staging, a subsequent scan of the lower abdomen and pelvic region during the same examination would be necessary.…”

“…The use of Gd-EOB might lead to tissue deposition of Gd and its use is restricted to dedicated hepatic imaging only (8,9). Furthermore, Gd-EOBenhanced MRI shows deficiencies in extrahepatic tumor staging because of inferior vascular and tissue enhancement and rapid decay of T1-shortening effects in the vascular pool compared to extracellular contrast media (ECCM) because of the lower amount of gadolinium per dose and the more rapid elimination from the blood pool (10)(11)(12).…”