Ikeda Hirotaka, Ohno Yoshiharu, Yamamoto Kaori, Murayama Kazuhiro, Ikedo Masato, Yui Masao, Kumazawa Yunosuke, Shimamura Yurika, Takagi Yui, Nakagaki Yuhei, Hanamatsu Satomu, Obama Yuki, Ueda Takahiro, Nagata Hiroyuki, Ozawa Yoshiyuki, Iwase Akiyoshi, Toyama Hiroshi
Department of Radiology, Fujita Health University School of Medicine, Toyoake 470-1192, Aichi, Japan.
Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Fujita Health University School of Medicine, Toyoake 470-1192, Aichi, Japan.
Cancers (Basel). 2024 Apr 28;16(9):1714. doi: 10.3390/cancers16091714.
Diffusion-weighted images (DWI) obtained by echo-planar imaging (EPI) are frequently degraded by susceptibility artifacts. It has been suggested that DWI obtained by fast advanced spin-echo (FASE) or reconstructed with deep learning reconstruction (DLR) could be useful for image quality improvements. The purpose of this investigation using in vitro and in vivo studies was to determine the influence of sequence difference and of DLR for DWI on image quality, apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) evaluation, and differentiation of malignant from benign head and neck tumors.
For the in vitro study, a DWI phantom was scanned by FASE and EPI sequences and reconstructed with and without DLR. Each ADC within the phantom for each DWI was then assessed and correlated for each measured ADC and standard value by Spearman's rank correlation analysis. For the in vivo study, DWIs obtained by EPI and FASE sequences were also obtained for head and neck tumor patients. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and ADC were then determined based on ROI measurements, while SNR of tumors and ADC were compared between all DWI data sets by means of Tukey's Honest Significant Difference test.
For the in vitro study, all correlations between measured ADC and standard reference were significant and excellent (0.92 ≤ ρ ≤ 0.99, < 0.0001). For the in vivo study, the SNR of FASE with DLR was significantly higher than that of FASE without DLR ( = 0.02), while ADC values for benign and malignant tumors showed significant differences between each sequence with and without DLR ( < 0.05).
In comparison with EPI sequence, FASE sequence and DLR can improve image quality and distortion of DWIs without significantly influencing ADC measurements or differentiation capability of malignant from benign head and neck tumors.
通过回波平面成像（EPI）获得的扩散加权图像（DWI）经常因磁敏感伪影而退化。有人提出，通过快速进阶自旋回波（FASE）获得或用深度学习重建（DLR）重建的DWI可能有助于改善图像质量。本研究通过体外和体内研究，旨在确定序列差异和DWI的DLR对图像质量、表观扩散系数（ADC）评估以及头颈部肿瘤良恶性鉴别诊断的影响。
在体外研究中，使用FASE和EPI序列扫描DWI体模，并在有和没有DLR的情况下进行重建。然后对每个DWI体模内的每个ADC进行评估，并通过Spearman等级相关分析将每个测量的ADC与标准值进行相关性分析。在体内研究中，对头颈部肿瘤患者也获取了通过EPI和FASE序列获得的DWI。然后基于感兴趣区（ROI）测量确定信噪比（SNR）和ADC，同时通过Tukey真实显著性差异检验比较所有DWI数据集之间肿瘤的SNR和ADC。
在体外研究中，测量的ADC与标准参考之间的所有相关性均显著且良好（0.92≤ρ≤0.99，P<0.0001）。在体内研究中，有DLR的FASE的SNR显著高于没有DLR的FASE（P = 0.02），而有无DLR的每个序列之间良性和恶性肿瘤的ADC值显示出显著差异（P<0.05）。
与EPI序列相比，FASE序列和DLR可以改善DWI的图像质量和失真，而不会显著影响ADC测量或头颈部肿瘤良恶性的鉴别能力。
