Respiratory motion prediction and prospective correction for free-breathing arterial spin labeled perfusion MRI of the kidneys

Resumen:
PURPOSE: Respiratory motion prediction using an artificial neural network (ANN) was integrated with pseudocontinuous arterial spin labeling (pCASL) MRI to allow free-breathing perfusion measurements in the kidney. In this study, we evaluated the performance of the ANN to accurately predict the location of the kidneys during image acquisition. METHODS: A pencil-beam navigator was integrated with a pCASL sequence to measure lung/diaphragm motion during ANN training and the pCASL transit delay. The ANN algorithm ran concurrently in the background to predict organ location during the 0.7 s 15-slice acquisition based on the navigator data. The predictions were supplied to the pulse sequence to prospectively adjust the axial slice acquisition to match the predicted organ location. Additional navigators were acquired immediately after the multislice acquisition to assess the performance and accuracy of the ANN. The technique was tested in 8 healthy volunteers. RESULTS: The root mean square error (RMSE) and mean absolute error (MAE) for the 8 volunteers were 1.91 ± 0.17 mm and 1.43 ± 0.17 mm, respectively, for the ANN. The RMSE increased with transit delay. The MAE typically increased from the first to last prediction in the image acquisition. The overshoot was 23.58% ± 3.05% using the target prediction accuracy of ± 1 mm. CONCLUSION: Respiratory motion prediction with prospective motion correction was successfully demonstrated for free-breathing perfusion MRI of the kidney. The method serves as an alternative to multiple breathholds and requires minimal effort on the part of the patient. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.