Rebecca Glarin^1,2, Yasmin Blunck¹, and Bradford Moffat^1
1MBCIU, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia, ²Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia

Functional MRI is a dominant tool in both neuroscience research and neurosurgical planning. Multiband EPI can not be ignored as a staple acquisition tool for fMRI. It has the ability to assist in improving temporal resolution, spatial resolution and signal to noise. When using this highly effective and efficient technique there are considerations in order to gain the most for the sequence without producing detrimental imaging artefacts. Once the technique is understood there is a future application of Multiecho Multiband EPI which can potentially be used with great success to increase sensitivity and specificity of BOLD signal and fMRI.

Yoshihiro Akatsuka¹, Hiroyuki Takashima¹, Rui Imamura¹, Hiroshi Nagahama¹, and Mitsuhiro Nakanishi^1
1Division of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Sapporo Medical University Hospital, Sapporo, Japan

We examined whether APT-CEST can reflect the difference of pH in solutions using egg white powder (EWP) using a 3-Tesla MRI. EWP was dissolved in distilled water to various concentrations, and their pH levels were subsequently titrated to 6.7-7.2. CEST effect (%)/ pH in 3.8 % solution were 3.27 ± 0.11/ 6.7, 3.46 ± 0.14/ 6.8 and 3.95 ± 0.11/ 7.2. CEST effect (%)/ pH in 4.7 % solution were 3.97 ± 0.17/ 6.8, 4.56 ± 0.15/ 6.9 and 4.88 ± 0.14/ 7.2. The solution using EWP can be used as a phantom reflecting the difference of pH in APT-CEST.

Dejian Qiu¹, Bertwin Chen¹, Peik Yen Teh¹, and Tee Meng Tan^1
1Radiological Sciences, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore

The administration of gadolinium-based contrast agents in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is traditionally avoided during pregnancy, due to safety concerns over gadolinium exposure to the fetus. In our institution, female patients of reproductive age are required to undergo a urine pregnancy test (UPT), should contrast-enhanced MRI be required. However, this policy is not sufficiently comprehensive in safeguarding patients in the early stages of pregnancy as a UPT can be inaccurate between days 14 to 28 of the menstrual cycle. This presentation will reassess and propose changes to the gadolinium administration policy in patients of unknown pregnancy status in our institution.

Christine Mancini¹, W. Patricia Bandettini¹, Peter Kellman¹, Hui Xue¹, Anna Conrey¹, Swee Lay Thein¹, and Adrienne E. Campbell-Washburn^1
1Division of Intramural Research, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States

Normal iron storage can be found in the liver.  When the liver becomes saturated with iron due to a primary or secondary disease process, the iron will deposit in targeted extra-hepatic organs.  T2*-based imaging is a non-invasive tool for quantifying iron in an individual organ.  This  study compared the T2* imaging of extra-hepatic organs on a 1.5T and a prototype low field 0.55T.  These results were then compared to blood ferritin levels and found to have a modest correlation.

Rui Imamura¹, Hiroyuki Takashima¹, Mitsuhiro Nakanishi¹, Hiroshi Nagahama¹, and Yoshihiro Akatsuka^1
1Division of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Sapporo Medical University Hospital, Sapporo, Japan

The CS technique has been applied to various sequence of MRI, which helped reduce the acquisition time while showing minimal effect on image quality. The aim of this study was to investigate the change of image quality and resolution with increase of acceleration factor, and reveal the upper limit of the number of acceleration factor of CS with 3D MRI. The line profile slope was significantly different with acceleration factor higher than 22 compared to without PI. Our results suggested that the upper limit of acceleration factor on T2WI with 3D-TSE was 22 because of decrease of resolution.

Anna M Borkon¹, Michael J DiBalsi², Megan Keiser³, and Timothy H Lucas^4
1Research, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ²ClearPoint, ClearPoint, MRI Interventions, INC., Irvine, CA, United States, ³The Center for Cellular and Molecular Therapy, The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ⁴Department of Neurosurgery, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States

The current technological advances of the intracranial Convection-Enhanced Delivery (CED) open a novel possibility for infusing therapeutics directly into multiple targets located in the same cerebellar hemisphere with high precision and safety. The presented experiment is based on the AAV1 infusion into the Deep Cerebellar Nuclei (DCN), namely the dentate, interposed and fastigial in NHPs using the real-time CED approach. In retrospect, the conclusion of this experiment is that multiple targets located close to each other in the brain can be successfully infused during the same MRI session with no or minimal reflux visualized on the post-infusion images.

Nancy Hill Beluk¹, Morie Kephart², Ashok Panigrahy¹, and Judy H. Squires^1
1Radiology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States, ²Aureus Medical Group, Omaha, NE, United States

MRI is considered to be the current gold standard for neonatal brain imaging. However, there are often challenges when transporting critically ill neonates for diagnostic imaging studies including clinical instability, safety related to patient transport, the possible need for sedation, and MR incompatibility of patient monitoring equipment. Our study retrospectively examined standard brain MRI to contrast-enhanced transfontanelle ultrasound (ce-TUS) in neonates.

Nancy Hill Beluk¹, Tracy Baust², Vincent Kyu Lee¹, Benjamin Meyers¹, Julia Wallace¹, Lauren Lorenzi³, Alexandra Mikulis², Maddie Chrisman⁴, Yulia Domnina², and Ashok Panigrahy^1
1Radiology, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA, United States, ²Critical Care Medicine, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA, United States, ³Behavioral Health Sciences, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA, United States, ⁴Physical and Occupational Therapies, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, PA, United States

Children with Congenital Heart Defects (CHD) are at an increased risk for neurological deficits and neurodevelopmental delays with the most common anomaly being white matter injury (WMI). Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), uses water’s diffusivity to characterize microstructural changes in WM. One DTI metric, fractional anisotropy (FA), increases with myelination and decreases in the presence of demyelination. We examined the association between early developmental therapies (such as OT, PT, and SLP)   and WMI in infants with CHD using FA as a quantitative imaging metric for white matter integrity.

Vahid Ravanfar¹, Mohammad Mehdi Khalighi², Chad Bobb³, Namasvi Jariwala¹, Edgar Castellanos Diaz¹, Emma Bahroos¹, and Javier Villanueva-Meyer^1
1Radiology, UCSF, San Francisco, CA, United States, ²Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, United States, ³PET/MR Engineering, GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI, United States

When PET images are fused to MR images which are aligned to the Talairach anterior commissure (AC) – posterior commissure(PC) line, the PET images are reformatted to the AC-PC plane. The reformatting of the PET images may change the visual appearance of a tumor based on the axial slice angle of the fused images. When reading PET/MR images, one must note the displayed plane of PET images as compared to the MR images.  Cross-referencing between PET and MR should be performed on images displayed in the same plane. 

LI MING^1
1radiology departmengt, NANJING DRUM TOWER HOSPITAL, NANJING, China

To investigate the role of super-fast and high-resolution MRI in vivo and in vitro fetus confirmed by pathological autopsy. The fetuses were scanned with 1.5T, Philips, Balance-Fast Field Echo(B-FFE) and half-fourier acquisition singo-shot T2W-DRIVE， in vivo. Ten of them took MRI scans in vitro within 2 hours after induced labor then autopsy. The post-mortem MRI sequences were susceptibility weighted imaging(SWI)。Two fetus were confirmed abnormalities in brain and 8 were body malformation after autopsy. The findings of ultrasound, prenatal and post-mortem MRI were contrasted with autopsy as a retrospective study.

Hiroyuki Takashima¹, Mitsuhiro Nakanishi¹, Hiroshi Nagahama¹, Rui Imamura¹, and Yoshihiro Akatsuka^1
1Division of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine, Sapporo Medical University Hospital, Sapporo, Japan

In several recent studies, the compressed sensing (CS) technique has been applied to various sequence, which helped reduce the scan time while showing minimal effect on image quality. However, the appropriate number of acceleration factor of CS is unclear. We aimed to reveal the appropriate number of acceleration factor of CS with TSE-DWI. We calculated %CV from the image of ADC, the similarity between images of the control and the accelerated sequences was evaluated using structural similarity index (SSIM). From results of this research, the appropriate number of acceleration factor of CS with TSE-DWI was revealed as up to 4.

Lisa M Desiderio¹, Danielle Urban¹, Lauren Karpf¹, Leeanne Lezotte¹, Sabrina Williams¹, Samantha By², Brian Welch², Jacqui Meeks¹, Bridget Pomponio¹, Andrea Pogozelski¹, and Joel M Stein^1
1Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ²Hyperfine Research Inc, Guiford, CT, United States

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the usability and acceptability of a newly developed low-field (64 mT), portable, point-of-care (POC) MRI scanner in comparison to standard clinical high-field (1.5 and 3T) imaging from both a patient and operator perspective. Standard MRI units are expensive and technically challenging to install, maintain, and operate and can be difficult for some patients with sensitivity to noise or claustrophobia.  Based on our early experience, we find that the experience of POC MRI can be acceptable and preferable to patients as well as operators, including personnel without a technical background in MRI.

Jennifer Croll¹ and Gemma Stoddart^1
1Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Australia

Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) and B1+rms are two radiofrequency (RF) exposure metrics used in MRI. The monitoring of RF exposure in patients with implants is crucial for ensuring compliance with specific implant scanning conditions. As SAR can be highly variable many implants now state a B1+rms value to allow scanning of conditional implants.  However, more recently several scanner manufacturers have stated that the actual B1+rms value recorded during scanning may be higher than the predicted value. This could impact the scanning of patients with conditional implants and potentially compromise patient safety.

Larowin Toni¹, Olga Smelianskaia¹, Sunitha Thakur¹, and Katja Pinker-Domenig^1
1Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, United States

MRI of the breast is the most sensitive test for breast lesion detection.  The backbone of any breast MRI protocol is a high-resolution T1-weighted contrast enhanced sequence, which allows the assessment of high-resolution breast tumor and enhancement kinetics to depict angiogenesis as a tumor-specific feature. DISCO and LAVA VIBRANT-Flex MRI provide similar excellent image quality while allowing faster acquisition time and high spatial and temporal resolution. In comparison DISCO provides excellent fat suppression at 3T where conventional fat saturation techniques are often suboptimal, reduces motion artifacts and it provides better and higher spatial resolution.

Larowin Toni¹, Olga Smelianskaia¹, Elizabeth Morris¹, and Yolanda Bryce^1
1Radiology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, United States

An MRI-guided breast biopsy can be lengthy and uncomfortable for the patient, which potentially can be mitigated by computer-aided software that helps localize the lesion, compared with manual localization. We performed a retrospective trial to see if a computer-aided software system reduces procedure length, increases accuracy, and increases confidence of the clinician performing the procedure. Our study demonstrates that computer-aided software can significantly decrease length of time of the procedure but does not impact accuracy of the biopsy or confidence of the clinician performing the procedure.   

Larowin Toni¹, Olga Smelianskaia¹, Elizabeth Morris¹, and Elizabeth Sutton^1
1Radiology, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, NY, United States

Non-contrast MRI-guided biopsy is a promising minimally-invasive approach with high accuracy in diagnosing a breast cancer pathologic complete response post-neoadjuvant chemotherapy which could potentially obviate surgery in this subset of patients.