Comparison of breath-hold multishot echo-planar and respiratory triggered fast-spin-echo sequences for T2-weighted MRI of liver lesions

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the usefulness of multishot echo- planar imaging in detecting liver tumors in comparison with respiratory tri ggered Ta-weighted fast-spin-echo (FSE) imaging, Thirty-two patients with 7 0 focal liver lesions were imaged using a 1,5-T high speed MR imager, Eight -shot echo-planar images covering the whole liver were acquired during a si ngle breath-hold period, FSE images were acquired with respiratory triggeri ng in approximately 4 minutes, Lesion detectability and image quality of th e two pulse sequences were analyzed qualitatively, Quantitative analysis wa s performed by means of signal-to-noise and tumor-liver contrast-to-noise a nalysis. Lesion detectability was comparable in both solid (86.3% vs 90.2%: .3 < P < .5) and nonsolid lesions (89.5% vs 100%:.3 < P < .5) between echo- planar and FSE images, Echo-planar imaging provided significantly reduced i mage artifact, better lesion conspicuity, and anatomic detail compared with FSE imaging, The signal-to-noise and contrast-to-noise ratios of echo-plan ar images were significantly higher than those of FSE images. Breath-hold e ight-shot echo-planar imaging can be an alternative to Ta-weighted FSE imag ing because it can provide comparable image quality in a substantially decr eased acquisition time.