isoPhasor: a generic and precise marker visualization, localization, and quantification method based on phase saddles in 3D MR imaging.

PURPOSE: To derive a generic approach for accurate localization and characterization of susceptibility markers in MRI, compatible with many common types of pulse sequences, sampling trajectories, and acceleration methods. THEORY AND METHODS: A susceptibility marker's dipolar phase evolution creates 3 saddles in the phase gradient of the spatial encoding, for each sampled data point in k-space. The signal originating from these saddles can be focused at the location of the marker to create positive contrast. The required phase shift can be calculated from the scan parameters and the marker properties, providing a marker detection algorithm generic for different scan types. The method was validated numerically and experimentally for a broad range of spherical susceptibility markers (0.3 < radius < 1.6 mm, 10 < |∆χ| < 3300 ppm), under various conditions. RESULTS: For all numerical and experimental phantoms, the average localization error was below one third of the voxel size, whereas the average error in magnetic strength quantification was 7%. The experiments included different pulse sequences (gradient echo, spin echo [SE], and free induction decay scans), sampling strategies (Cartesian, radial), and acceleration methods (echo planar imaging EPI, turbo SE). CONCLUSION: Spherical markers can be identified from their phase saddles, enabling clear visualization, precise localization, and accurate quantification of their magnetic strength, in a wide range of clinically relevant pulse sequences and sampling strategies.

Fast Fourier-based simulation of off-resonance artifacts in steady-state gradient echo MRI applied to metal object localization.

PURPOSE: To accelerate simulation of off-resonance artifacts in steady-state gradient echo MRI by using fast Fourier transforms and demonstrate its applicability to metal object localization. THEORY AND METHODS: By exploiting the repetitive nature of steady-state pulse sequences it is possible to use fast Fourier transforms to calculate the MR signal. Based on this principle, a method for fast simulation of off-resonance artifacts was designed. The method was validated against Bloch simulations and MRI scans. Its clinical relevance was demonstrated by employing it for template matching-based metal object localization, as applied to a titanium cylinder, an oxidized zirconium knee implant, and gold fiducials. RESULTS: The fast simulations were accurate compared with actual MRI scans of the objects. The differences between the fast simulations and Bloch simulations were minor, while the acceleration scaled linearly with the number of phase-encoding lines. The object localization method accurately localized the various metal objects. CONCLUSION: The proposed simulation methodology provided accurate 3D simulations of off-resonance artifacts with a lower computational complexity than Bloch simulations. The speed of the simulations opens up possibilities in image reconstructions involving off-resonance phenomena that were previously infeasible due to computational limitations, as demonstrated for metal object localization. Magn Reson Med 78:2035-2041, 2017. © 2016 The Authors Magnetic Resonance in Medicine published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Influence of water and fat heterogeneity on fat-referenced MR thermometry.

PURPOSE: To investigate the effect of the aqueous and fatty tissue magnetic susceptibility distribution on absolute and relative temperature measurements as obtained directly from the water/fat (w/f) frequency difference. METHODS: Absolute thermometry was investigated using spherical phantoms filled with pork and margarine, which were scanned in three orthogonal orientations. To evaluate relative fat referencing, multigradient echo scans were acquired before and after heating pork tissue via high-intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU). Simulations were performed to estimate the errors that can be expected in human breast tissue. RESULTS: The sphere experiment showed susceptibility-related errors of 8.4 °C and 0.2 °C for pork and margarine, respectively. For relative fat referencing measurements, fat showed pronounced phase changes of opposite polarity to aqueous tissue. The apparent mean temperature for a numerical breast model assumed to be 37 °C was 47.2 ± 21.6 °C. Simulations of relative fat referencing for a HIFU sonication (ΔT = 29.7 °C) yielded a maximum temperature error of 6.6 °C compared with 2.5 °C without fat referencing. CONCLUSION: Variations in the observed frequency difference between water and fat are largely due to variations in the w/f spatial distribution. This effect may lead to considerable errors in absolute MR thermometry. Additionally, fat referencing may exacerbate rather than correct for proton resonance frequency shift-temperature measurement errors.

Correction of proton resonance frequency shift MR-thermometry errors caused by heat-induced magnetic susceptibility changes during high intensity focused ultrasound ablations in tissues containing fat.

PURPOSE: In this study, we aim to demonstrate the sensitivity of proton resonance frequency shift (PRFS) -based thermometry to heat-induced magnetic susceptibility changes and to present and evaluate a model-based correction procedure. THEORY AND METHODS: To demonstrate the expected temperature effect, field disturbances during high intensity focused ultrasound sonications were monitored in breast fat samples with a three-dimensional (3D) gradient echo sequence. To evaluate the correction procedure, the interface of tissue-mimicking ethylene glycol gel and fat was sonicated. During sonication, the temperature was monitored with a 2D dual flip angle multi-echo gradient echo sequence, allowing for PRFS-based relative and referenced temperature measurements in the gel and T1 -based temperature measurements in fat. The PRFS-based measurement in the gel was corrected by minimizing the discrepancy between the observed 2D temperature profile and the profile predicted by a 3D thermal model. RESULTS: The HIFU sonications of breast fat resulted in a magnetic field disturbance which completely disappeared after cooling. For the correction method, the 5th to 95th percentile interval of the PRFS-thermometry error in the gel decreased from 3.8°C before correction to 2.0-2.3°C after correction. CONCLUSION: This study has shown the effects of magnetic susceptibility changes induced by heating of breast fatty tissue samples. The resultant errors can be reduced by the use of a model-based correction procedure.

Alias subtraction more efficient than conventional zero-padding in the Fourier-based calculation of the susceptibility induced perturbation of the magnetic field in MR.

Forward calculation of the susceptibility induced field shift by Fourier-based procedures requires spatial zero-padding to prevent aliasing artifacts (periodic wrap-around). Padding with a factor of two gives accurate results, however, halves the maximal attainable resolution, and slows down the calculation, which may hamper the feasibility of real-time calculations. Herein is proposed to first perform the calculation at the original resolution--allowing aliasing-and to remove aliasing with an additional convolution in a lower resolution, to alleviate these restrictions regarding memory size and calculation speed, a procedure we termed "virtual" zero-padding. Virtual zero-padding was numerically and experimentally tested and validated with conventional zero-padding and the analytical solution (in the case of spheres) on several phantoms. A demonstration of the increased efficiency is given by implementing virtual zero-padding in a dynamic calculation procedure. The improved efficiency is expected to be relevant regarding the ongoing increase in spatial and temporal resolution in ultra-high-field MRI. Procedures are presented for circular convolution using the discrete Green's function and k-space filtering using the continuous Green's function.

Multispectral 3D phase-encoded turbo spin-echo for imaging near metal: Limitations and possibilities demonstrated by simulations and phantom experiments.

To see improvements in the imaging performance near biomaterial implants we assessed a multispectral fully phase-encoded turbo spin-echo (ms3D-PE-TSE) sequence for artifact reduction capabilities and scan time efficiency in simulation and phantom experiments. For this purpose, ms3D-PE-TSE and ms3D-TSE sequences were implemented to obtain multispectral images (±20kHz) of a cobalt-chromium (CoCr) knee implant embedded in agarose. In addition, a knee implant computer model and the acquired ms3D-PE-TSE images were used to investigate the possibilities for scan time acceleration using field-of-view (FOV) reduction for off-resonance frequency bins and compressed sensing reconstructions of undersampled data. Both acceleration methods were combined to acquire a +10kHz frequency bin in a second experiment. The obtained ms3D-PE-TSE images showed no susceptibility related artifacts, while ms3D-TSE images suffered from hyper-intensity artifacts. The limitations of ms3D-TSE were apparent in the far off-resonance regions (±[10-20]kHz) located close to the implant. The scan time calculations showed that ms3D-PE-TSE can be applied in a clinically relevant timeframe (~12min), when omitting the three central frequency bins. The feasibility of CS acceleration for ms3D-PE-TSE was demonstrated using retrospective reconstructions before combining CS and rFOV imaging to decrease the scan time for the +10kHz frequency bin from ~10.9min to ~3.5min, while also increasing the spatial resolution fourfold. The temporally resolved signal of ms3D-PE-TSE proved to be useful to decrease the intensity ripples after sum-of-squares reconstructions and increase the signal-to-noise ratio. The presented results suggest that the scan time limitations of ms3D-PE-TSE can be sufficiently addressed when focusing on signal acquisitions in the direct vicinity of metal implants. Because these regions cannot be measured with existing multispectral methods, the presented ms3D-PE-TSE method may enable the detection of inflammation or (pseudo-)tumors in locations close to the implant.

Geometrically undistorted MRI in the presence of field inhomogeneities using compressed sensing accelerated broadband 3D phase encoded turbo spin-echo imaging.

In this study, we explore the potential of compressed sensing (CS) accelerated broadband 3D phase-encoded turbo spin-echo (3D-PE-TSE) for the purpose of geometrically undistorted imaging in the presence of field inhomogeneities. To achieve this goal 3D-PE-SE and 3D-PE-TSE sequences with broadband rf pulses and dedicated undersampling patterns were implemented on a clinical scanner. Additionally, a 3D multi-spectral spin-echo (ms3D-SE) sequence was implemented for reference purposes. First, we demonstrated the influence of susceptibility induced off-resonance effects on the spatial encoding of broadband 3D-SE, ms3D-SE, 3D-PE-SE and 3D-PE-TSE using a grid phantom containing a titanium implant (Δχ = 182 ppm) with x-ray CT as a gold standard. These experiments showed that the spatial encoding of 3D-PE-(T)SE was unaffected by susceptibility induced off-resonance effects, which caused geometrical distortions and/or signal hyper-intensities in broadband 3D-SE and, to a lesser extent, in ms3D-SE frequency encoded methods. Additionally, an SNR analysis was performed and the temporally resolved signal of 3D-PE-(T)SE sequences was exploited to retrospectively decrease the acquisition bandwidth and obtain field offset maps. The feasibility of CS acceleration was studied retrospectively and prospectively for the 3D-PE-SE sequence using an existing CS algorithm adapted for the reconstruction of 3D data with undersampling in all three phase encoded dimensions. CS was combined with turbo-acceleration by variable density undersampling and spherical stepwise T2 weighting by randomly sorting consecutive echoes in predefined spherical k-space layers. The CS-TSE combination resulted in an overall acceleration factor of 60, decreasing the original 3D-PE-SE scan time from 7 h to 7 min. Finally, CS accelerated 3D-PE-TSE in vivo images of a titanium screw were obtained within 10 min using a micro-coil demonstrating the feasibility of geometrically undistorted MRI near severe field inhomogeneities.

Multi-gradient echo MR thermometry for monitoring of the near-field area during MR-guided high intensity focused ultrasound heating.

The multi-gradient echo MR thermometry (MGE MRT) method is proposed to use at the interface of the muscle and fat layers found in the abdominal wall, to monitor MR-HIFU heating. As MGE MRT uses fat as a reference, it is field-drift corrected. Relative temperature maps were reconstructed by subtracting absolute temperature maps. Because the absolute temperature maps are reconstructed of individual scans, MGE MRT provides the flexibility of interleaved mapping of temperature changes between two arbitrary time points. The method's performance was assessed in an ex vivo water bath experiment. An ex vivo HIFU experiment was performed to show the method's ability to monitor heating of consecutive HIFU sonications and to estimate cooling time constants, in the presence of field drift. The interleaved use between scans of a clinical protocol was demonstrated in vivo in a patient during a clinical uterine fibroid treatment. The relative temperature measurements were accurate (mean absolute error 0.3 °C) and provided excellent visualization of the heating of consecutive HIFU sonications. Maps were reconstructed of estimated cooling time constants and mean ROI values could be well explained by the applied heating pattern. Heating upon HIFU sonication and subsequent cooling could be observed in the in vivo demonstration.

On the utility of spectroscopic imaging as a tool for generating geometrically accurate MR images and parameter maps in the presence of field inhomogeneities and chemical shift effects.

Lack of spatial accuracy is a recognized problem in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) which severely detracts from its value as a stand-alone modality for applications that put high demands on geometric fidelity, such as radiotherapy treatment planning and stereotactic neurosurgery. In this paper, we illustrate the potential and discuss the limitations of spectroscopic imaging as a tool for generating purely phase-encoded MR images and parameter maps that preserve the geometry of an object and allow localization of object features in world coordinates. Experiments were done on a clinical system with standard facilities for imaging and spectroscopy. Images were acquired with a regular spin echo sequence and a corresponding spectroscopic imaging sequence. In the latter, successive samples of the acquired echo were used for the reconstruction of a series of evenly spaced images in the time and frequency domain. Experiments were done with a spatial linearity phantom and a series of test objects representing a wide range of susceptibility- and chemical-shift-induced off-resonance conditions. In contrast to regular spin echo imaging, spectroscopic imaging was shown to be immune to off-resonance effects, such as those caused by field inhomogeneity, susceptibility, chemical shift, f(0) offset and field drift, and to yield geometrically accurate images and parameter maps that allowed object structures to be localized in world coordinates. From these illustrative examples and a discussion of the limitations of purely phase-encoded imaging techniques, it is concluded that spectroscopic imaging offers a fundamental solution to the geometric deficiencies of MRI which may evolve toward a practical solution when full advantage will be taken of current developments with regard to scan time reduction. This perspective is backed up by a demonstration of the significant scan time reduction that may be achieved by the use of compressed sensing for a simple phantom.

Multiple single-point imaging (mSPI) as a tool for capturing and characterizing MR signals and repetitive signal disturbances with high temporal resolution: the MRI scanner as a high-speed camera.

In this paper we aim to lay down and demonstrate the use of multiple single-point imaging (mSPI) as a tool for capturing and characterizing steady-state MR signals and repetitive disturbances thereof with high temporal resolution. To achieve this goal, various 2D mSPI sequences were derived from the nearest standard 3D imaging sequences by (i) replacing the excitation of a 3D slab by the excitation of a 2D slice orthogonal to the read axis, (ii) setting the readout gradient to zero, and (iii) leaving out the inverse Fourier transform in the read direction. The thus created mSPI sequences, albeit slow with regard to the spatial encoding part, were shown to result into a series of densely spaced 2D single-point images in the time domain enabling monitoring of the evolution of the magnetization with a high temporal resolution and without interference from any encoding gradients. The high-speed capabilities of mSPI were demonstrated by capturing and characterizing the free induction decays and spin echoes of substances with long T2s (>30 ms) and long and short T2*s (4 - >30 ms) and by monitoring the perturbation of the transverse magnetization by, respectively, a titanium cylinder, representing a static disturbance; a pulsed magnetic field gradient, representing a stimulus inherent to a conventional MRI experiment; and a pulsed electric current, representing an external stimulus. The results of the study indicate the potential of mSPI for assessing the evolution of the magnetization and, when properly synchronized with the acquisition, repeatable disturbances thereof with a temporal resolution that is ultimately limited by the bandwidth of the receiver, but in practice governed by the SNR of the experiment and the magnitude of the disturbance. Potential applications of mSPI can be envisaged in research areas that are concerned with MR signal behavior, MR system performance and MR evaluation of magnetically evoked responses.