Development and evaluation of TWIST Dixon for dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) MRI with improved acquisition efficiency and fat suppression

Purpose: To develop a new pulse sequence called time-resolved angiography with stochastic trajectories (TWIST) Dixon for dynamic contrast enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI). Materials and Methods: The method combines dual-echo Dixon to generate separated water and fat images with a k-space view-sharing scheme developed for 3D TWIST. The performance of TWIST Dixon was compared with a volume interpolated breathhold examination (VIBE) sequence paired with spectrally selective adiabatic inversion Recovery (SPAIR) and quick fat-sat (QFS) fat-suppression techniques at 3.0T using quantitative measurements of fat-suppression accuracy and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) efficiency, as well as qualitative breast image evaluations. Results: The water fraction of a uniform phantom was calculated from the following images: 0.66 +/- 0.03 for TWIST Dixon; 0.56 +/- 0.23 for VIBE-SPAIR, and 0.53 +/- 0.14 for VIBE-QFS, while the reference value is 0.70 measured by spectroscopy. For phantoms with contrast (Gd-BOPTA) concentration ranging from 06 mM, TWIST Dixon also provides consistently higher SNR efficiency (3.218.9) compared with VIBE-SPAIR (2.816.8) and VIBE-QFS (2.412.5). Breast images acquired with TWIST Dixon at 3.0T show more robust and uniform fat suppression and superior overall image quality compared with VIBE-SPAIR. Conclusion: The results from phantom and volunteer evaluation suggest that TWIST Dixon outperforms conventional methods in almost every aspect and it is a promising method for DCE-MRI and contrast-enhanced perfusion MRI, especially at higher field strength where fat suppression is challenging. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2012;36:483491. (c) 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.