Validation of 10-minute delayed hepatocyte phase imaging with 30° flip angle in gadoxetic acid-enhanced MRI for the detection of liver metastasis

Abstract

Objectives To compare 10-minute delayed hepatocyte phase imaging using a 30° flip angle (10min- FA30) and 20-minute hepatocyte phase imaging using a 10° FA (20min-FA10) in gadoxetic acid-enhanced MRI of patients with possible liver metastases, regarding lesion-to-liver contrast- to-noise ratio (CNR) and focal hepatic lesion (FHL) detection to evaluate whether 10min-FA30 would be superior to 20min-FA10. Materials and Methods Eighty-three patients with 248 liver metastases and 78 benign FHLs who underwent gadoxetic acid-enhanced MRI with 10min-FA30 and 20min-FA10 were enrolled. Lesion-toliver CNRs were compared between the two image groups.Two radiologists independently assessed the presence of FHLs using a four-point scale and detection sensitivity was calculated. Results The mean CNR for liver metastases on the 10min-FA30 (248.5 ± 101.6) were significantly higher than that of the 20min-FA10 (187.4 ± 77.4) (p < 0.001). The mean CNR difference between the two image groups was 61.2 ± 56.8. There was no significant difference in detection sensitivity of FHLs for two readers between 10min-FA30 (mean 97.7%) and 20min-FA10 (mean 97.9%), irrespective of the lesion size or malignancy.Conclusion 10min-FA30 yielded higher CNR with similar sensitivity compared to 20min-FA10. This finding indicates that 10min-FA30 can potentially replace 20min-FA10 with higher diagnostic performance and save 10 minutes of time.