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Chen Z, Hua S, Gao J, Chen Y, Gong Y, Shen Y, Tang X, Emu Y, Jin W, Hu C. A dual-stage partially interpretable neural network for joint suppression of bSSFP banding and flow artifacts in non-phase-cycled cine imaging. J Cardiovasc Magn Reson 2023; 25:68. [PMID: 37993824 PMCID: PMC10666342 DOI: 10.1186/s12968-023-00988-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/25/2023] [Accepted: 11/12/2023] [Indexed: 11/24/2023] Open
Abstract
PURPOSE To develop a partially interpretable neural network for joint suppression of banding and flow artifacts in non-phase-cycled bSSFP cine imaging. METHODS A dual-stage neural network consisting of a voxel-identification (VI) sub-network and artifact-suppression (AS) sub-network is proposed. The VI sub-network provides identification of artifacts, which guides artifact suppression and improves interpretability. The AS sub-network reduces banding and flow artifacts. Short-axis cine images of 12 frequency offsets from 28 healthy subjects were used to train and test the dual-stage network. An additional 77 patients were retrospectively enrolled to evaluate its clinical generalizability. For healthy subjects, artifact suppression performance was analyzed by comparison with traditional phase cycling. The partial interpretability provided by the VI sub-network was analyzed via correlation analysis. Generalizability was evaluated for cine obtained with different sequence parameters and scanners. For patients, artifact suppression performance and partial interpretability of the network were qualitatively evaluated by 3 clinicians. Cardiac function before and after artifact suppression was assessed via left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF). RESULTS For the healthy subjects, visual inspection and quantitative analysis found a considerable reduction of banding and flow artifacts by the proposed network. Compared with traditional phase cycling, the proposed network improved flow artifact scores (4.57 ± 0.23 vs 3.40 ± 0.38, P = 0.002) and overall image quality (4.33 ± 0.22 vs 3.60 ± 0.38, P = 0.002). The VI sub-network well identified the location of banding and flow artifacts in the original movie and significantly correlated with the change of signal intensities in these regions. Changes of imaging parameters or the scanner did not cause a significant change of overall image quality relative to the baseline dataset, suggesting a good generalizability. For the patients, qualitative analysis showed a significant improvement of banding artifacts (4.01 ± 0.50 vs 2.77 ± 0.40, P < 0.001), flow artifacts (4.22 ± 0.38 vs 2.97 ± 0.57, P < 0.001), and image quality (3.91 ± 0.45 vs 2.60 ± 0.43, P < 0.001) relative to the original cine. The artifact suppression slightly reduced the LVEF (mean bias = -1.25%, P = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS The dual-stage network simultaneously reduces banding and flow artifacts in bSSFP cine imaging with a partial interpretability, sparing the need for sequence modification. The method can be easily deployed in a clinical setting to identify artifacts and improve cine image quality.
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Affiliation(s)
- Zhuo Chen
- National Engineering Research Center of Advanced Magnetic Resonance Technologies for Diagnosis and Therapy, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 415 S Med-X Center, 1954 Huashan Road, Shanghai, 200030, China
| | - Sha Hua
- Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Heart Failure Center, Ruijin Hospital Lu Wan Branch, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Juan Gao
- National Engineering Research Center of Advanced Magnetic Resonance Technologies for Diagnosis and Therapy, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 415 S Med-X Center, 1954 Huashan Road, Shanghai, 200030, China
| | - Yanjia Chen
- Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Heart Failure Center, Ruijin Hospital Lu Wan Branch, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Yiwen Gong
- Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Heart Failure Center, Ruijin Hospital Lu Wan Branch, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Yiwen Shen
- Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Heart Failure Center, Ruijin Hospital Lu Wan Branch, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Xin Tang
- National Engineering Research Center of Advanced Magnetic Resonance Technologies for Diagnosis and Therapy, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 415 S Med-X Center, 1954 Huashan Road, Shanghai, 200030, China
| | - Yixin Emu
- National Engineering Research Center of Advanced Magnetic Resonance Technologies for Diagnosis and Therapy, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 415 S Med-X Center, 1954 Huashan Road, Shanghai, 200030, China
| | - Wei Jin
- Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, Heart Failure Center, Ruijin Hospital Lu Wan Branch, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
| | - Chenxi Hu
- National Engineering Research Center of Advanced Magnetic Resonance Technologies for Diagnosis and Therapy, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, 415 S Med-X Center, 1954 Huashan Road, Shanghai, 200030, China.
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Xiang J, Lamy J, Lampert R, Peters DC. Balanced Steady-State Free Precession Cine MR Imaging in the Presence of Cardiac Devices: Value of Interleaved Radial Linear Combination Acquisition With Partial Dephasing. J Magn Reson Imaging 2023; 58:782-791. [PMID: 36373998 DOI: 10.1002/jmri.28528] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/27/2022] [Revised: 10/31/2022] [Accepted: 11/01/2022] [Indexed: 11/16/2022] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND Balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) is important in cardiac MRI but suffers from off-resonance artifacts. The interpretation-limiting artifacts in patients with cardiac implants remain an unsolved issue. PURPOSE To develop an interleaved radial linear combination bSSFP (lcSSFP) method with partial dephasing (PD) for improved cardiac cine imaging when implanted cardiovascular devices are present. STUDY TYPE Prospective. PHANTOM AND SUBJECTS Flow phantom adjacent to a pacemaker and 10 healthy volunteers (mean age ± standard deviation: 31.9 ± 2.9 years, 4 females) with a cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) positioned extracorporeally at the left chest in the prepectoral region. FIELD STRENGTH/SEQUENCE A 3-T, 1) Cartesian bSSFP, 2) Cartesian gradient echo (GRE), 3) Cartesian lcSSFP, and 4) radial lcSSFP cine sequences. ASSESSMENT Flow artifacts mitigation using PD was validated with phantom experiments. Undersampled radial lcSSFP with interleaving across phase-cyclings and cardiac phases (RLC-SSFP), combined with PD, was then employed for achieving improved quality of cine images from left ventricular short-axis view. The image quality in the presence of cardiac devices was qualitatively assessed by three independent raters (1 = worst, 5 = best), regarding five criteria (banding artifacts, streak artifacts, flow artifacts, cavity visibility, and overall image quality). STATISTICAL TESTS Wilcoxon rank-sum test for the five criteria between Cartesian bSSFP cine and RLC-SSFP with PD. Fleiss kappa test for inter-reader agreement. A P value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. RESULTS Based on simulations and phantom experiments, 60 projections per phase cycling and 1/6 PD were chosen. The in vivo experiments demonstrated significantly reduced banding artifacts (4.8 ± 0.4 vs. 2.7 ± 0.7), fewer streak artifacts (3.7 ± 0.6 vs. 2.6 ± 0.7) and flow artifacts (4.4 ± 0.4 vs. 3.7 ± 0.6), therefore improved cavity visibility (4.1 ± 0.4 vs. 2.9 ± 0.9) and overall quality (4.0 ± 0.4 vs. 2.7 ± 0.7). DATA CONCLUSION RLC-SSFP method with PD may improve cine image quality in subjects with cardiac devices. EVIDENCE LEVEL 2. TECHNICAL EFFICACY Stage 1.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jie Xiang
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Jerome Lamy
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Rachel Lampert
- Department of Medicine, Cardiovascular Division, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
| | - Dana C Peters
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA
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Huang L. Editorial for "Balanced Steady-State Free Precession Cine MR Imaging in the Presence of Cardiac Devices: Value of Interleaved Radial Linear Combination Acquisition With Partial Dephasing". J Magn Reson Imaging 2023; 58:792-793. [PMID: 36533442 DOI: 10.1002/jmri.28558] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/25/2022] [Accepted: 11/29/2022] [Indexed: 12/23/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- Li Huang
- School of Biomedical Engineering and Imaging Sciences, Faculty of Life Sciences and Medicine, King's College London, London, UK
- Neoscan Solutions GmbH, Magdeburg, Germany
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Ali F, Bydder M, Han H, Wang D, Ghodrati V, Gao C, Prosper A, Nguyen KL, Finn JP, Hu P. Slice encoding for the reduction of outflow signal artifacts in cine balanced SSFP imaging. Magn Reson Med 2021; 86:2034-2048. [PMID: 34056755 PMCID: PMC10185493 DOI: 10.1002/mrm.28858] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/16/2020] [Revised: 05/04/2021] [Accepted: 05/06/2021] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
Abstract
PURPOSE Standard balanced SSFP (bSSFP) cine MRI often suffers from blood outflow artifacts. We propose a method that spatially encodes these outflowing spins to reduce their effects in the intended slice. METHODS Bloch simulations were performed to characterize through-plane flow and to investigate how the use of phase encoding along the slice select's direction ("slice encoding") could alleviate its issues. Phantom scans and in vivo cines were acquired on a 3T system, comparing the standard 2D acquisition to the proposed slice-encoding method. Nineteen healthy volunteers were recruited for short-axis and horizontal long-axis oriented scans. An expert radiologist evaluated each slice-encoded/standard cine pairs in a rank comparison test and graded their quality on a 1-5 scale. The grades were used for a nonparametric paired evaluation for independent samples with a null hypothesis that there was no statistical difference between the two quality-grade distributions for α = 0.05 significance. RESULTS Bloch simulation results demonstrated this technique's feasibility, showing a fully resolved slice profile given a sufficient number of slice encodes. These results were confirmed with the phantom experiments. Each in vivo slice-encoded cine had a higher quality than its corresponding standard acquisition. The nonparametric paired evaluation came to 0.01 significance, encouraging us to reject the null hypothesis and conclude that slice-encoding effectively works in reducing outflow effects. CONCLUSION The slice-encoding balanced SSFP technique is helpful in mitigating outflow effects and is achievable within a single breath hold, being a useful alternative for cases in which the flow artifacts are significant.
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Affiliation(s)
- Fadil Ali
- Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA.,Physics and Biology in Medicine Inter-Departmental Graduate Program, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
| | - Mark Bydder
- Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
| | - Hui Han
- Biomedical Imaging Research Center, Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA
| | - Da Wang
- Department of Radiation and Cellular Oncology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
| | - Vahid Ghodrati
- Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA.,Physics and Biology in Medicine Inter-Departmental Graduate Program, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
| | - Chang Gao
- Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA.,Physics and Biology in Medicine Inter-Departmental Graduate Program, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
| | - Ashley Prosper
- Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
| | - Kim-Lien Nguyen
- Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA.,Physics and Biology in Medicine Inter-Departmental Graduate Program, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA.,Division of Cardiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA.,Division of Cardiology, VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, Los Angeles, California, USA
| | - J Paul Finn
- Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
| | - Peng Hu
- Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA.,Physics and Biology in Medicine Inter-Departmental Graduate Program, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, USA
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Datta A, Nishimura DG, Baron CA. Banding‐free balanced SSFP cardiac cine using frequency modulation and phase cycle redundancy. Magn Reson Med 2019; 82:1604-1616. [DOI: 10.1002/mrm.27815] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/19/2018] [Revised: 04/09/2019] [Accepted: 04/24/2019] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Anjali Datta
- Electrical Engineering Stanford University Stanford California
| | | | - Corey A. Baron
- Electrical Engineering Stanford University Stanford California
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Robb JS, Hu C, Peters DC. Interleaved, undersampled radial multiple-acquisition steady-state free precession for improved left atrial cine imaging. Magn Reson Med 2019; 83:1721-1729. [PMID: 31605555 DOI: 10.1002/mrm.28036] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/29/2019] [Revised: 08/31/2019] [Accepted: 09/20/2019] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
Abstract
PURPOSE Balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) left atrial (LA) cine suffers from off-resonance artifacts, particularly in the pulmonary veins (PVs). Linear combination or multiple-acquisition SSFP (MA-SSFP) effectively removes banding but greatly increases scan time. We hypothesized that MA-SSFP with interleaved radial undersampling, where each phase-cycling is acquired with an interleaved set of radial projections, would improve image quality of LA cine with a small increase of scan time and streak artefacts. METHODS Undersampled radial MA-SSFP with and without interleaving was compared with fully sampled radial bSSFP by means of simulations, phantoms, and in vivo imaging. Ten healthy subjects were imaged on a 3T scanner, with bSSFP and MA-SSFP cine of the left atrium, and B0-mapping. Images were assessed (1 = worst, 5 = best) by 2 independent readers, with respect to 5 qualitative criteria and apparent signal-to-noise ratio. RESULTS In healthy subjects, off-resonance differed from the right inferior PVs to the LA cavity by 163 Hz ± 73 Hz at 3T. Compared with fully sampled radial bSSFP, interleaved radial MA-SSFP significantly improved image quality with respect to off-resonance artifacts (3.8 ± 0.6 versus 2.3 ± 1.0; P = 0.005), PV conspicuity (2.8 ± 1.0 versus 4.3 ± 0.5; P = 0.005), and the number of visualized PVs (1.7 ± 0.4 versus 0.9 ± 0.7; P = 0.008), although with greater streak artifacts (3.4 ± 0.4 versus 4.9 ± 0.2; P = 0.004) and lower measured apparent signal-to-noise ratio (24 ± 9 versus 69 ± 36; P = 0.002). Flow artifacts were similar. Interleaved radial MA-SSFP reduced streaking artifacts and increased apparent signal-to-noise ratio versus noninterleaved radial. CONCLUSIONS Interleaved radial MA-SSFP cine reduces banding artifacts with an acceptable increase of scan time and streak artifacts. The proposed technique improves the LA and PV visualization in bSSFP cine imaging.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Chenxi Hu
- School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.,Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
| | - Dana C Peters
- Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, Yale School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
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