A prospective assessment of breath-hold fast spin echo and inversion recovery fast spin echo techniques for detection and characterization of focal hepatic lesions

The purpose of this study was to prospectively assess two breath-hold T-2-w eighted fast spin-echo sequences and two breath-hold inversion recovery fas t spin-echo sequences to determine their relative ability to detect and cha racterize focal hepatic lesions. Fourteen patients with a total of nineteen proven focal hepatic lesions were imaged with two breath-hold T-2-weighted (T2W) fast spin echo sequences (HASTE TE = 66 and HASTE TE = 120), two bre ath-hold inversion recovery fast spin echo sequences (IRFSE TE = 64 and IRF SE TE = 95), and a nonbreath-hold T-2-weighted fast-spin echo sequence (IRF SE TE = 96-120). Contrast-to-noise ratios (CNRs) were measured for all prov en lesions on all sequences. Both IRFSE sequences and the HASTE sequence wi th TE = 66 showed an improvement in lesion-liver and liver-spleen CNRs comp ared to the nonbreath-hold T2W sequence. The mean difference in CNR between benign and malignant lesions was largest for the HASTE TE = 120 sequence. These preliminary results suggest that a breath-hold IRFSE sequence (TE = 6 4 or 95) has an equal ability to detect focal hepatic lesions as a nonbreat h-hold T2W FSE sequence (TE = 96-120). The HASTE TE = 120 showed the greate st ability to discriminate between benign and malignant lesions. (C) 2000 E lsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.