Dear MRI Insider,
Given the concerns over the use of gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs), clinicians often look for ways to image patients with equal efficacy using unenhanced MRI. It appears too soon to opt out of dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI (DCE-MRI) for assessing suspicious breast lesions, however.
In fact, the best option is a combination of DCE-MRI and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI-MRI), according to a group from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Medical University of Vienna. In a recent study, the researchers concluded that multiparametric MRI, whereby DCE-MRI is combined with DWI-MRI, was the most effective approach for characterizing these lesions. More details are available in this Insider Exclusive.
Additionally, Turkish researchers investigated the possibility of avoiding GBCAs in follow-up MRI scans of patients with intracranial meningiomas. How did the unenhanced MRI scans perform? Click here to find out.
In other news, researchers from Stanford University have trained a deep-learning algorithm to transform low-resolution, thick-slice knee MR images into high-resolution, thin-slice images. They believe the technology could result in faster image acquisition, lower costs, and fewer motion artifacts in musculoskeletal MRI.
Elsewhere, researchers at Cedars-Sinai are giving the term multitasking a new meaning by developing an MRI technique that eliminates breath-holds and shortens cardiac scan time. The MR multitasking approach creates what they call 6D images of a beating heart and blood flow, providing diagnostic accuracy with enhanced patient comfort.
MRI is also helping researchers investigate how depression medication taken by pregnant women may affect brain development in newborns. Preliminary results indicate that infants exposed to the medication while in the womb have significantly more gray matter in several brain regions than babies whose mothers did not receive medication for their condition.
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