Rossi Espagnet M C, Bangiyev L, Haber M, Block K T, Babb J, Ruggiero V, Boada F, Gonen O, Fatterpekar G M
From the Department of Radiology, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York, New York.
AJNR Am J Neuroradiol. 2015 Aug;36(8):1444-9. doi: 10.3174/ajnr.A4324. Epub 2015 May 7.
The pituitary gland is located outside of the blood-brain barrier. Dynamic T1 weighted contrast enhanced sequence is considered to be the gold standard to evaluate this region. However, it does not allow assessment of intrinsic permeability properties of the gland. Our aim was to demonstrate the utility of radial volumetric interpolated brain examination with the golden-angle radial sparse parallel technique to evaluate permeability characteristics of the individual components (anterior and posterior gland and the median eminence) of the pituitary gland and areas of differential enhancement and to optimize the study acquisition time.
A retrospective study was performed in 52 patients (group 1, 25 patients with normal pituitary glands; and group 2, 27 patients with a known diagnosis of microadenoma). Radial volumetric interpolated brain examination sequences with golden-angle radial sparse parallel technique were evaluated with an ROI-based method to obtain signal-time curves and permeability measures of individual normal structures within the pituitary gland and areas of differential enhancement. Statistical analyses were performed to assess differences in the permeability parameters of these individual regions and optimize the study acquisition time.
Signal-time curves from the posterior pituitary gland and median eminence demonstrated a faster wash-in and time of maximum enhancement with a lower peak of enhancement compared with the anterior pituitary gland (P < .005). Time-optimization analysis demonstrated that 120 seconds is ideal for dynamic pituitary gland evaluation. In the absence of a clinical history, differences in the signal-time curves allow easy distinction between a simple cyst and a microadenoma.
This retrospective study confirms the ability of the golden-angle radial sparse parallel technique to evaluate the permeability characteristics of the pituitary gland and establishes 120 seconds as the ideal acquisition time for dynamic pituitary gland imaging.
垂体位于血脑屏障之外。动态T1加权对比增强序列被认为是评估该区域的金标准。然而，它无法评估垂体的内在通透性特性。我们的目的是证明采用黄金角径向稀疏并行技术的径向容积内插脑检查在评估垂体各组成部分（垂体前叶和后叶以及正中隆起）的通透性特征、差异强化区域以及优化研究采集时间方面的实用性。
对52例患者进行了一项回顾性研究（第1组，25例垂体正常的患者；第2组，27例已知诊断为微腺瘤的患者）。采用基于感兴趣区的方法评估具有黄金角径向稀疏并行技术的径向容积内插脑检查序列，以获得垂体腺体内各个正常结构以及差异强化区域的信号-时间曲线和通透性测量值。进行统计分析以评估这些个体区域通透性参数的差异并优化研究采集时间。
与垂体前叶相比，垂体后叶和正中隆起的信号-时间曲线显示出更快的流入和最大强化时间，强化峰值较低（P <.005）。时间优化分析表明，120秒是动态垂体评估的理想时间。在没有临床病史的情况下，信号-时间曲线的差异可轻松区分单纯囊肿和微腺瘤。
这项回顾性研究证实了黄金角径向稀疏并行技术评估垂体通透性特征的能力，并确定120秒为动态垂体成像的理想采集时间。
