Human prostate MRI at ultrahigh-performance gradient: A feasibility study.

PURPOSE: To demonstrate the technical feasibility and the value of ultrahigh-performance gradient in imaging the prostate in a 3T MRI system. METHODS: In this local institutional review board-approved study, prostate MRI was performed on 4 healthy men. Each subject was scanned in a prototype 3T MRI system with a 42-cm inner-diameter gradient coil that achieves a maximum gradient amplitude of 200 mT/m and slew rate of 500 T/m/s. PI-RADS V2.1-compliant axial T2 -weighted anatomical imaging and single-shot echo planar DWI at standard gradient of 70 mT/m and 150 T/m/s were obtained, followed by DWI at maximum performance (i.e., 200 mT/m and 500 T/m/s). In comparison to state-of-the-art clinical whole-body MRI systems, the high slew rate improved echo spacing from 1020 to 596 µs and, together with a high gradient amplitude for diffusion encoding, TE was reduced from 55 to 36 ms. RESULTS: In all 4 subjects (waist circumference = 81-91 cm, age = 45-65 years), no peripheral nerve stimulation sensation was reported during DWI. Reduced image distortion in the posterior peripheral zone prostate gland and higher signal intensity, such as in the surrounding muscle of high-gradient DWI, were noted. CONCLUSION: Human prostate MRI at simultaneously high gradient amplitude of 200 mT/m and slew rate of 500 T/m/s is feasible, demonstrating that improved gradient performance can address image distortion and T2 decay-induced SNR issues for in vivo prostate imaging.

Revealing tumor microstructure with oscillating diffusion encoding MRI in pre-surgical and post-treatment glioma patients.

PURPOSE: We hypothesized that the time-dependent diffusivity at short diffusion times, as measured by oscillating gradient spin echo (OGSE) diffusion MRI, can characterize tissue microstructures in glioma patients. THEORY AND METHODS: Five adult patients with known diffuse glioma, including two pre-surgical and three with new enhancing lesions after treatment for high-grade glioma, were scanned in an ultra-high-performance gradient 3.0T MRI system. OGSE diffusion MRI at 30-100 Hz and pulsed gradient spin echo diffusion imaging (approximated as 0 Hz) were obtained. The ADC and trace-diffusion-weighted image at each acquired frequency were calculated, that is, ADC (f) and TraceDWI (f). RESULTS: In pre-surgical patients, biopsy-confirmed solid enhancing tumor in a high-grade glioblastoma showed higher ADC ( f ) ADC ( 0 Hz ) $$ \frac{\mathrm{ADC}\ (f)}{\mathrm{ADC}\ \left(0\ \mathrm{Hz}\right)} $$ and lower TraceDWI ( f ) TraceDWI ( 0 Hz ) $$ \frac{\mathrm{TraceDWI}\ (f)}{\mathrm{TraceDWI}\ \left(0\ \mathrm{Hz}\right)} $$ , compared to that at same OGSE frequency in a low-grade astrocytoma. In post-treatment patients, the enhancing lesions of two patients who were diagnosed with tumor progression contained more voxels with high ADC ( f ) ADC ( 0 Hz ) $$ \frac{\mathrm{ADC}\ (f)}{\mathrm{ADC}\ \left(0\ \mathrm{Hz}\right)} $$ and low TraceDWI ( f ) TraceDWI ( 0 Hz ) $$ \frac{\mathrm{TraceDWI}\left(\mathrm{f}\right)}{\mathrm{TraceDWI}\left(0\ \mathrm{Hz}\right)} $$ , compared to the enhancing lesions of a patient who was diagnosed with treatment effect. Non-enhancing T2 signal abnormality lesions in both the pre-surgical high-grade glioblastoma and post-treatment tumor progressions showed regions with high ADC ( f ) ADC ( 0 Hz ) $$ \frac{\mathrm{ADC}\ (f)}{\mathrm{ADC}\ \left(0\ \mathrm{Hz}\right)} $$ and low TraceDWI ( f ) TraceDWI ( 0 Hz ) $$ \frac{\mathrm{TraceDWI}\ \left(\mathrm{f}\right)}{\mathrm{TraceDWI}\ \left(0\ \mathrm{Hz}\right)} $$ , consistent with infiltrative tumor. The solid tumor of the glioblastoma, the enhancing lesions of post-treatment tumor progressions, and the suspected infiltrative tumors showed high diffusion time-dependency from 30 to 100 Hz, consistent with high intra-tumoral volume fraction (cellular density). CONCLUSION: Different characteristics of OGSE-based time-dependent diffusivity can reveal heterogenous tissue microstructures that indicate cellular density in glioma patients.

Simulation guided design of the MRcollar: a MR compatible applicator for deep heating in the head and neck region.

PURPOSE: To develop a head and neck hyperthermia phased array system compatible with a 1.5 T magnetic resonance (MR) scanner for noninvasive thermometry. METHODS: We designed a dielectric-parabolic-reflector antenna (DiPRA) based on a printed reflector backed dipole antenna and studied its predicted and measured performance in a flat configuration (30 mm thick water bolus and muscle equivalent layer). Thereafter, we designed a phased array applicator model ('MRcollar') consisting of 12 DiPRA modules placed on a radius of 180 mm. Theoretical heating performance of the MRcollar model was benchmarked against the current clinical applicator (HYPERcollar3D) using specific (3D) head and neck models of 28 treated patients. Lastly, we assessed the influence of the DiPRA modules on MR scanning quality. RESULTS: The predicted and measured reflection coefficients (S11) of the DiPRA module are below -20 dB. The maximum specific absorption rate (SAR) in the area under the antenna was 47% higher than for the antenna without encasing. Compared to the HYPERcollar3D, the MRcollar design incorporates 31% less demineralized water (-2.5 L), improves the predicted TC25 (target volume enclosed by 25% iso-SAR contour) by 4.1% and TC50 by 8.5%, while the target-to-hotspot quotient (THQ) is minimally affected (-1.6%). MR experiments showed that the DiPRA modules do not affect MR transmit/receive performance. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that head and neck hyperthermia delivery quality with the MRcollar can be maintained, while facilitating simultaneous noninvasive MR thermometry for treatment monitoring and control.

Systematic review of pre-clinical and clinical devices for magnetic resonance-guided radiofrequency hyperthermia.

Clinical trials have demonstrated the therapeutic benefits of adding radiofrequency (RF) hyperthermia (HT) as an adjuvant to radio- and chemotherapy. However, maximum utilization of these benefits is hampered by the current inability to maintain the temperature within the desired range. RF HT treatment quality is usually monitored by invasive temperature sensors, which provide limited data sampling and are prone to infection risks. Magnetic resonance (MR) temperature imaging has been developed to overcome these hurdles by allowing noninvasive 3D temperature monitoring in the target and normal tissues. To exploit this feature, several approaches for inserting the RF heating devices into the MR scanner have been proposed over the years. In this review, we summarize the status quo in MR-guided RF HT devices and analyze trends in these hybrid hardware configurations. In addition, we discuss the various approaches, extract best practices and identify gaps regarding the experimental validation procedures for MR - RF HT, aimed at converging to a common standard in this process.

Highly efficient head-only magnetic field insert gradient coil for achieving simultaneous high gradient amplitude and slew rate at 3.0T (MAGNUS) for brain microstructure imaging.

PURPOSE: To develop a highly efficient magnetic field gradient coil for head imaging that achieves 200 mT/m and 500 T/m/s on each axis using a standard 1 MVA gradient driver in clinical whole-body 3.0T MR magnet. METHODS: A 42-cm inner diameter head-gradient used the available 89- to 91-cm warm bore space in a whole-body 3.0T magnet by increasing the radial separation between the primary and the shield coil windings to 18.6 cm. This required the removal of the standard whole-body gradient and radiofrequency coils. To achieve a coil efficiency ~4× that of whole-body gradients, a double-layer primary coil design with asymmetric x-y axes, and symmetric z-axis was used. The use of all-hollow conductor with direct fluid cooling of the gradient coil enabled ≥50 kW of total heat dissipation. RESULTS: This design achieved a coil efficiency of 0.32 mT/m/A, allowing 200 mT/m and 500 T/m/s for a 620 A/1500 V driver. The gradient coil yielded substantially reduced echo spacing, and minimum repetition time and echo time. In high b = 10,000 s/mm2 diffusion, echo time (TE) < 50 ms was achieved (>50% reduction compared with whole-body gradients). The gradient coil passed the American College of Radiology tests for gradient linearity and distortion, and met acoustic requirements for nonsignificant risk operation. CONCLUSIONS: Ultra-high gradient coil performance was achieved for head imaging without substantial increases in gradient driver power in a whole-body 3.0T magnet after removing the standard gradient coil. As such, any clinical whole-body 3.0T MR system could be upgraded with 3-4× improvement in gradient performance for brain imaging.

Referenced MR thermometry using three-echo phase-based fat water separation method.

A three-point image reconstruction method for internally referenced MR thermometry was developed. The technique exploits the fact that temperature-induced changes in the water resonance frequency are small relative to the chemical shift difference between water and fat signals. This property enabled the use of small angle approximations to derive an analytic phase-based fat-water separation method for MR thermometry. Ethylene glycol and cream cool-down experiments were performed to validate measurement technique. Over a cool-down temperature range of 20 °C, maximum deviation between probe and MR measurement (averaged over 1.3 cm3 region surrounding probe) was 0.6 °C and 1.1 °C for ethylene glycol and cream samples, respectively.

Exploration of MR-guided head and neck hyperthermia by phantom testing of a modified prototype applicator for use with proton resonance frequency shift thermometry.

Magnetic resonance thermometry (MRT) offers non-invasive temperature imaging and can greatly contribute to the effectiveness of head and neck hyperthermia. We therefore wish to redesign the HYPERcollar head and neck hyperthermia applicator for simultaneous radio frequency (RF) heating and magnetic resonance thermometry. In this work we tested the feasibility of this goal through an exploratory experiment, in which we used a minimally modified applicator prototype to heat a neck model phantom and used an MR scanner to measure its temperature distribution. We identified several distorting factors of our current applicator design and experimental methods to be addressed during development of a fully MR compatible applicator. To allow MR imaging of the electromagnetically shielded inside of the applicator, only the lower half of the HYPERcollar prototype was used. Two of its antennas radiated a microwave signal (150 W, 434 MHz) for 11 min into the phantom, creating a high gradient temperature profile (ΔTmax = 5.35 °C). Thermal distributions were measured sequentially, using drift corrected proton resonance frequency shift-based MRT. Measurement accuracy was assessed using optical probe thermometry and found to be about 0.4 °C (0.1-0.7 °C). Thermal distribution size and shape were verified by thermal simulations and found to have a good correlation (r(2 )= 0.76).

MRI of Thiel-embalmed human cadavers.

PURPOSE: To explain the observed considerable loss of signal and contrast when Thiel-embalmed human cadavers are imaged using clinical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sequences, especially those based on spin-echo MRI. MATERIALS AND METHODS: All cadavers were imaged with a medical 1.5T scanner using standard MRI sequences. Dual angle B1+ magnitude mapping and electromagnetic (EM) simulations that characterize the radiofrequency (RF) penetration in a male human body model (HBM) were carried out for a range of tissue conductivities. RESULTS: The EM simulations show that RF penetration issues begin to affect the image quality for values of electrical conductivity as low as 2.6 S/m. The electrical conductivity values of the embalming fluids were found to be within the range of 5-10.6 S/m, thus strongly suggesting that the observed loss in signal and contrast is due to diminished RF penetration inside the cadavers. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that gradient-echo (GRE)-based MRI sequences perform better than spin-echo (SE)-based sequences, as they are less susceptible to imperfections in the flip angle that are inevitably present when imaging Thiel cadavers. CONCLUSION: The diminished signal and contrast observed when imaging Thiel-embalmed human cadavers may be attributed to the high conductivity of the embalming liquids.

Fat-referenced MR thermometry in the breast and prostate using IDEAL.

PURPOSE: To demonstrate a three-echo fat-referenced MR thermometry technique that estimates and corrects for time-varying phase disturbances in heterogeneous tissues. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Fat protons do not exhibit a temperature-dependent frequency shift. Fat-referenced thermometry methods exploit this insensitivity and use the signal from fat to measure and correct for magnetic field disturbances. In this study, we present a fat-referenced method that uses interpolation of the fat signal to correct for phase disturbances in fat free regions. Phantom and ex vivo tissue cool-down experiments were performed to evaluate the accuracy of this method in the absence of motion. Non-heated in vivo imaging of the breast and prostate was performed to demonstrate measurement robustness in the presence of systemic and motion-induced field disturbances. Measurement accuracy of the method was compared to conventional proton resonance frequency shift MR thermometry. RESULTS: In the ex vivo porcine tissue experiment, maximum measurement error of the fat-referenced method was reduced 42% from 3.3 to 1.9°C when compared to conventional MR thermometry. In the breasts, measurement errors were reduced by up to 70% from 6.4 to 1.9°C. CONCLUSION: Ex vivo and in vivo results show that the proposed method reduces measurement errors in the heterogeneous tissue experiments when compared to conventional MR thermometry.

Local specific absorption rate in high-pass birdcage and transverse electromagnetic body coils for multiple human body models in clinical landmark positions at 3T.

PURPOSE: To use electromagnetic (EM) simulations to study the effects of body type, landmark position, and radiofrequency (RF) body coil type on peak local specific absorption rate (SAR) in 3T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). MATERIALS AND METHODS: Numerically computed peak local SAR for four human body models (HBMs) in three landmark positions (head, heart, pelvic) were compared for a high-pass birdcage and a transverse electromagnetic 3T body coil. Local SAR values were normalized to the IEC whole-body average SAR limit of 2.0 W/kg for normal scan mode. RESULTS: Local SAR distributions were highly variable. Consistent with previous reports, the peak local SAR values generally occurred in the neck-shoulder area, near rungs, or between tissues of greatly differing electrical properties. The HBM type significantly influenced the peak local SAR, with stockier HBMs, extending extremities towards rungs, displaying the highest SAR. There was also a trend for higher peak SAR in the head-centric and heart-centric positions. The impact of the coil types studied was not statistically significant. CONCLUSION: The large variability in peak local SAR indicates the need to include more than one HBM or landmark position when evaluating safety of body coils. It is recommended that an HBM with arms near the rungs be included to create physically realizable high-SAR scenarios.

Formulation of current density weighted indices for correspondence between functional MRI and electrocortical stimulation maps.

OBJECTIVE: Accurate localization of functionally significant brain regions reduces risks of post-operative neurological deficits. The gold standard for presurgical brain mapping is subdural electrocortical stimulation (ECS), which is an open-cranium surgical procedure. Functional MRI (fMRI) may be a noninvasive alternative if it can be shown that fMRI and ECS maps are spatially consistent. We formulate new 3D current density weighted ECS-fMRI correspondence indices and illustrate their use on human data. METHODS: Current density maps were computed for simulated and human datasets by solving the electrostatic Laplace equation. The proposed indices were characterized and compared with fixed radii and Euclidean distance indices. RESULTS: Results from simulated datasets showed that the proposed indices quantify correspondence between fMRI and the ECS truth predictably, and provide conspicuous sensitivity increase from fixed radii indices, whereas Euclidean distances may not be suitable measures of the correspondence. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed indices reflect contextual information from surrounding electrodes and may be physiologically more meaningful in evaluating ECS-fMRI correspondence. SIGNIFICANCE: To identify safe limits of resection, an ECS map requires placement of electrodes on a patient's brain. Our proposed indices accurately quantify ECS-fMRI correspondence and may be used to evaluate fMRI as a noninvasive alternative for defining resection limits.

Regularized field map estimation in MRI.

In fast magnetic resonance (MR) imaging with long readout times, such as echo-planar imaging (EPI) and spiral scans, it is important to correct for the effects of field inhomogeneity to reduce image distortion and blurring. Such corrections require an accurate field map, a map of the off-resonance frequency at each voxel. Standard field map estimation methods yield noisy field maps, particularly in image regions with low spin density. This paper describes regularized methods for field map estimation from two or more MR scans having different echo times. These methods exploit the fact that field maps are generally smooth functions. The methods use algorithms that decrease monotonically a regularized least-squares cost function, even though the problem is highly nonlinear. Results show that the proposed regularized methods significantly improve the quality of field map estimates relative to conventional unregularized methods.

Concurrent correction of geometric distortion and motion using the map-slice-to-volume method in echo-planar imaging.

The accuracy of measuring voxel intensity changes between stimulus and rest images in fMRI echo-planar imaging (EPI) data is severely degraded in the presence of head motion. In addition, EPI is sensitive to susceptibility-induced geometric distortions. Head motion causes image shifts and associated field map changes that induce different geometric distortion at different time points. Conventionally, geometric distortion is "corrected" with a static field map independently of image registration. That approach ignores all field map changes induced by head motion. This work evaluates the improved motion correction capability of mapping slice to volume with concurrent iterative field corrected reconstruction using updated field maps derived from an initial static field map that has been spatially transformed and resampled. It accounts for motion-induced field map changes for translational and in-plane rotation motion. The results from simulated EPI time series data, in which motion, image intensity and activation ground truths are available, show improved accuracy in image registration, field corrected image reconstruction and activation detection.

Comprehensive mathematical simulation of functional magnetic resonance imaging time series including motion-related image distortion and spin saturation effect.

There has been vast interest in determining the feasibility of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as an accurate method of imaging brain function for patient evaluations. The assessment of fMRI as an accurate tool for activation localization largely depends on the software used to process the time series data. The performance evaluation of different analysis tools is not reliable unless truths in motion and activation are known. Lack of valid truths has been the limiting factor for comparisons of different algorithms. Until now, currently available phantom data do not include comprehensive accounts of head motion. While most fMRI studies assume no interslice motion during the time series acquisition in fMRI data acquired using a multislice and single-shot echo-planar imaging sequence, each slice is subject to a different set of motion parameters. In this study, in addition to known three-dimensional motion parameters applied to each slice, included in the time series computation are geometric distortion from field inhomogeneity and spin saturation effect as a result of out-of-plane head motion. We investigated the effect of these head motion-related artifacts and present a validation of the mapping slice-to-volume (MSV) algorithm for motion correction and activation detection against the known truths. MSV was evaluated, and showed better performance in comparison with other widely used fMRI data processing software, which corrects for head motion with a volume-to-volume realignment method. Furthermore, improvement in signal detection was observed with the implementation of the geometric distortion correction and spin saturation effect compensation features in MSV.

Zero and first-order phase shift correction for field map estimation with dual-echo GRE using bipolar gradients.

A simple phase error correction technique used for field map estimation with a generally available dual-echo gradient-echo (GRE) sequence is presented. Magnetic field inhomogeneity maps estimated using two separate GRE volume acquisitions at different echo times are prone to dynamic motion errors between acquisitions. By using the dual-echo sequence, the data are collected during two back-to-back readout gradients in opposite polarity after a single radio frequency pulse, and interecho motion artifacts and alignment errors in field map estimation can be factored out. Residual phase error from the asymmetric readout pulses is modeled as an affine term in the readout direction. Results from phantom and human data suggest that the first-order phase correction term stays constant over time and, hence, can be applied to different data acquired with the same protocol over time. The zero-order phase correction term may change with time and is estimated empirically for different scans.

Improved map-slice-to-volume motion correction with B0 inhomogeneity correction: validation of activation detection algorithms using ROC curve analyses.

Head motion is a significant source of error in fMRI activation detection and a common approach is to apply 3D volumetric rigid body motion correction techniques. However, in 2D multislice fMRI, each slice may have a distinct set of motion parameters due to inter-slice motion. Here, we apply an automated mutual information based slice-to-volume rigid body registration technique on time series data synthesized from a T2 MRI brain dataset with simulated motion, functional activation, noise and geometric distortion. The map-slice-to-volume (MSV) technique was previously applied to patient data without ground truths for motion and activation regions. In this study, the activation images and area under the receiver operating characteristic curves for various time series datasets indicate that the MSV registration improves the activation detection capability when compared to results obtained from Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM). The effect of temporal median filtering of motion parameters on activation detection performance was also investigated.