T1-WEIGHTED MR-IMAGING OF THE BRAIN USING A FAST INVERSION-RECOVERY PULSE SEQUENCE

The purpose of this paper was to develop and evaluate a fast inversion recovery (FIR) technique for T1-weighted MR imaging of contrast-enhan cing brain pathology, The FIR technique was developed, capable of imag ing 24 sections in approximately 7 minutes using two echoes per repeti tion and an alternating echo phase encoding assignment, Resulting imag es were compared with conventional T1-weighted spin echo (T1SE) images in 18 consecutive patients. Compared with corresponding T1SE images, FIR images were quantitatively comparable or superior for lesion-to-ba ckground contrast and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). Gray-to-white mat ter and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)-to-white matter contrast and CNR wer e statistically superior in FIR images, Qualitatively, the FIR techniq ue provided comparable lesion detection, improved lesion conspicuity, and superior image contrast compared with T1SE Images, Although FIR im ages had greater amounts of image artifacts, there was not a statistic ally increased amount of interpretation-interfering image artifact, FI R provides T1-weighted images that are superior to T1SE images for a n umber of image quality criteria.