T2 weighted liver Magnetic Resonance imaging using functional residual capacity breath-hold with multi breath-hold

Purpose: During acquisition of rapid high resolution (HR) T2 weighted (T2W) liver magnetic resonance (MR) images using a 1.0-Tesla (T) scanner, the liver is segmented into odd and even sections that are acquired at two different times using the multi-breath-hold (MBH) strategy. Misalignment between the two breath-hold (B-H) images may result in the occurrence of a blind area and a decrease in diagnostic accuracy. Here, a functional residual capacity (FRC) B-H method was developed to overcome this problem. Material and methods: Twenty-five volunteers were enrolled. The sagittal images were reconstructed from whole liver transverse images. The misalignments of the abdominal wall were measured in the anterior-posterior (AP) direction and were compared between each two B-H phases, maximum inspiration, maximum expiration, voluntary expiration and FRC using one-way repeated measures ANOVA. Differences between groups were compared using the t-test for multigroup comparisons. In addition, qualitative analysis of misalignment was performed between VE and FRC in 52 clinical patients and the chi(2) test was performed. Results: Misalignment of the liver position using FRC was significantly smaller than the other B-H methods (p < 0.05). Significant differences between the VE B-H and FRC B-H were also observed in the qualitative analysis (p < 0.05).