Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Tokyo Medical and Dental University.
Department of Radiology, Dokkyo Medical University.
Magn Reson Med Sci. 2021 Dec 1;20(4):431-438. doi: 10.2463/mrms.mp.2020-0132. Epub 2021 Feb 2.
Synthetic MRI reconstructs multiple sequences in a single acquisition. In the present study, we aimed to compare the image quality and utility of synthetic MRI with that of conventional MRI in the breast.
We retrospectively collected the imaging data of 37 women (mean age: 55.1 years; range: 20-78 years) who had undergone both synthetic and conventional MRI of T2-weighted, T1-weighted, and fat-suppressed (FS)-T2-weighted images. Two independent breast radiologists evaluated the overall image quality, anatomical sharpness, contrast between tissues, image homogeneity, and presence of artifacts of synthetic and conventional MRI on a 5-point scale (5 = very good to 1 = very poor). The interobserver agreement between the radiologists was evaluated using weighted kappa.
For synthetic MRI, the acquisition time was 3 min 28 s. On the 5-point scale evaluation of overall image quality, although the scores of synthetic FS-T2-weighted images (4.01 ± 0.56) were lower than that of conventional images (4.95 ± 0.23; P < 0.001), the scores of synthetic T1- and T2-weighted images (4.95 ± 0.23 and 4.97 ± 0.16) were comparable with those of conventional images (4.92 ± 0.27 and 4.97 ± 0.16; P = 0.484 and 1.000, respectively). The kappa coefficient of conventional MRI was fair (0.53; P < 0.001), and that of conventional MRI was fair (0.46; P < 0.001).
The image quality of synthetic T1- and T2-weighted images was similar to that of conventional images and diagnostically acceptable, whereas the quality of synthetic T2-weighted FS images was inferior to conventional images. Although synthetic MRI images of the breast have the potential to provide efficient image diagnosis, further validation and improvement are required for clinical application.
合成 MRI 可在单次采集中重建多个序列。本研究旨在比较合成 MRI 与常规 MRI 在乳腺中的图像质量和应用价值。
我们回顾性收集了 37 名女性（平均年龄：55.1 岁；范围：20-78 岁）的成像数据，这些女性均接受了 T2 加权、T1 加权和脂肪抑制（FS）-T2 加权图像的合成 MRI 和常规 MRI 检查。两位独立的乳腺放射科医生使用 5 分制（5 分表示非常好，1 分表示非常差）对合成 MRI 和常规 MRI 的整体图像质量、解剖清晰度、组织对比度、图像均匀性和伪影存在情况进行评估。放射科医生之间的观察者间一致性采用加权 Kappa 进行评估。
对于合成 MRI，采集时间为 3 分 28 秒。在整体图像质量的 5 分制评估中，尽管合成 FS-T2 加权图像的评分（4.01±0.56）低于常规图像（4.95±0.23；P＜0.001），但合成 T1 和 T2 加权图像的评分（4.95±0.23 和 4.97±0.16）与常规图像相当（4.92±0.27 和 4.97±0.16；P=0.484 和 1.000）。常规 MRI 的 Kappa 系数为中等（0.53；P＜0.001），而合成 MRI 的 Kappa 系数为中等（0.46；P＜0.001）。
合成 T1 和 T2 加权图像的图像质量与常规图像相似，具有诊断可接受性，而合成 T2 加权 FS 图像的质量逊于常规图像。尽管乳腺的合成 MRI 图像具有提供高效图像诊断的潜力，但仍需要进一步验证和改进，以用于临床应用。
