Abstract #1514

3 Contrasts in 3 Minutes: Rapid, High-Resolution, and CT-like Head and Neck Imaging by Dual-RF, Dual-Echo UTE

Brian-Tinh Duc Vu^1,2, Nada Kamona^1,2, Hyunyeol Lee^1,3, Brandon C. Jones^1,2, Chamith S. Rajapakse^1,4, and Felix W. Wehrli¹

¹Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ²Department of Bioengineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ³School of Electronics Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea, Republic of, ⁴Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Synopsis

Keywords: Bone, Head & Neck/ENT, craniosynostosis, skull, ultrashort echo time, dual-echo

Motivation: Reduction of ionizing radiation for repeat CT imaging of pediatric patients with craniosynostosis.

Goal(s): Develop an MRI method for rapid, high-resolution skull imaging with CT-like contrast.

Approach: A dual-echo UTE sequence acquires 2 image echoes (proton density-weighted and T₁-weighted) in 3 minutes at a voxel size of 0.65x0.65x0.65 mm. A new joint ℓ₀-wavelet regularizer and an improved method for calculating the third image with CT-like contrast are developed.

Results: In 3 minutes of scan time, 3 co-registered high-resolution images with 3 different contrasts are simultaneously acquired. Image quality is not hindered by the aggressive acceleration factor. Short-T₂ specific images strongly resemble CT images.

Impact: We present a bone-specific dual-echo UTE MRI method that facilitates unimodal, single-session radiology for pediatric patients with craniosynostosis. The method does not involve ionizing radiation and may reduce the lifetime risk of cancer for patients indicated for repeat CT scans.

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