Charles Qingchuan Li1, Weitian Chen2,
Philip J. Beatty2, Anja C. Brau2, Brian A. Hargreaves1,
Reed F. Busse3, Garry
1Radiology, Stanford University,
Stanford, CA, United States; 2Global Applied Science Laboratory,
GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, United States; 3Global Applied
Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Madison, WI, United States
Current
clinical MRI techniques often employ parallel imaging, partial Fourier and
multicoil acquisition to decrease scan time while maintaining image quality.
To aid in image quality assessment, image noise statistics can be measured by
reconstructing noise-only acquisitions through an identical linear pipeline
as signal data, which may involve signal data-dependent steps such as
parallel imaging, partial Fourier homodyne and multichannel reconstructions.
In this study it was shown that SNR and CNR measurements performed in 146
clinical knee MRIs using this quantification method significantly differ from
the measurements obtained using the traditional foreground and background
volume of interest approach.