Clinical feasibility of CS-VIBE accelerates MRI techniques in diagnosing intracranial metastasis

Our objective was to evaluate and compare the diagnostic performance of post-contrast 3D compressed-sensing volume-interpolated breath-hold examination (CS-VIBE) and 3D T1 magnetization-prepared rapid-acquisition gradient-echo (MPRAGE) in detecting intracranial metastasis. Additionally, we analyzed and compared the image quality between the two. We enrolled 164 cancer patients who underwent contrast-enhanced brain MRI. Two neuroradiologists independently reviewed all the images. The signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), contrast-to noise ratio (CNR) were compared between two sequences. For patients with intracranial metastasis, we measured enhancement degree and CNR(lesion/parenchyma) of the lesion. The overall image quality, motion artifact, gray-white matter discrimination and enhancing lesion conspicuity were analyzed. Both MPRAGE and CS-VIBE showed similar performance in diagnosing intracranial metastasis. Overall image quality of CS-VIBE was better with less motion artifact; however conventional MPRAGE was superior in enhancing lesion conspicuity. Overall, the SNR and CNR of conventional MPRAGE were higher than those of CS-VIBE. For 30 enhancing intracranial metastatic lesions, MPRAGE showed a lower CNR (p = 0.02) and contrast ratio (p = 0.03). MPRAGE and CS-VIBE were preferred in 11.6 and 13.4% of cases, respectively. In comparison with conventional MPRAGE, CS-VIBE achieved comparable image quality and visualization, with the scan time being half of that of MPRAGE.