Ethan K. Brodsky1,2, Kevin M. Johnson3,
Walter F. Block3,4, Scott B. Reeder1,3
1Radiology, University of
Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States; 2Medical Physics,
University of Wisconsin , Madison, WI, United States; 3Medical
Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States; 4Biomedical
Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States
Detection, characterization and monitoring of hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC) in cirrhotic patients is challenging due to their variable and rapid arterial enhancement. Early efforts to supplant conventional multiphase CE-MRI with a time-resolved undersampled multi-echo 3DPR technique have shown promise, but require a wide temporal footprint to achieve adequate image quality, compromising temporal fidelity of small lesions enhancement and complicating quantitative modeling. In this work, we discuss improved k-space sampling trajectories and the incorporation of an iterative SENSE-based constrained reconstruction algorithm that lead to substantially improved temporal resolution and image quality. Consistency weighting allows for efficient use of data from multiple echo times.