Dual-echo breathhold T-2-weighted fast spin echo MR imaging of liver lesions

The purpose of this study was to develop a multi-shot dual-echo breathhold fast spin echo technique (DFSE) and compare it with conventional spin echo (T2SE) for T-2-weighted MR imaging of liver lesions. The DFSE acquisition ( EffTE1/EffTE2/TR = 66/143/2100 ms) imaged 5 sections per 17 s breathhold. T 2SE imaging (TE1/TE2/TR = 60/120/2500 ms) required 16:55 (min:s) for 14 sec tions. Both techniques used a receive-only phased-array abdominal multicoil and provided 192 X 256 effective resolution. The results showed first and second echo relative DFSE/T2SE contrast values for 27 representative lesion s (15 consecutive patients) were 1.08 +/- 0.05 and 1.16 +/- 0.09 (mean +/- STD mean), respectively. Corresponding CNR values were 1.12 +/- 0.09 and 0. 97 +/- 0.12. Overall DFSE was comparable-to-superior to T2SE for lesion siz ing and image artifact. DFSE lesion detection was inferior to T2SE's in sev eral patient studies because of decreased conspicuity of lesions located ne ar multicoil edges and because of poor breathhold-to-breathhold reproducibi lity and lack of breathholding. However both DFSE (and T2SE) provided lesio n detection rated to be of diagnostic quality for all patient studies. In c onclusion, we found that DFSE provides diagnostically useful dual-echo T-2- weighted MR liver images in a greatly decreased acquisition time. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.