Fast 3D contrast enhanced MRI of the liver using temporal resolution acceleration with constrained evolution reconstruction

Time-resolved imaging is crucial for the accurate diagnosis of liver lesions. Current contrast enhanced liver magnetic resonance imaging acquires a few phases in sequential breath-holds. The image quality is susceptible to bolus timing errors, which could result in missing the critical arterial phase. This impairs the detection of malignant tumors that are supplied primarily by the hepatic artery. In addition, the temporal resolution may be too low to reliably separate the arterial phase from the portal venous phase. In this study, a method called temporal resolution acceleration with constrained evolution reconstruction was developed with three-dimensional volume coverage and high-temporal frame rate. Data is acquired using a stack of spirals sampling trajectory combined with a golden ratio view order using an eight-channel coil array. Temporal frames are reconstructed from vastly undersampled data sets using a nonlinear inverse algorithm assuming that the temporal changes are small at short time intervals. Numerical and phantom experimental validation is presented. Preliminary in vivo results demonstrated high spatial resolution dynamic three-dimensional images of the whole liver with high frame rates, from which numerous subarterial phases could be easily identified retrospectively. Magn Reson Med, 2013. (C) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.