Use of a Two-point Dixon Vibe Sequence for Post-contrast Liver Mri: Comparison with Standard Chemically-selective Fat-suppressed Vibe for Image Quality and Lesion Detection

Introduction: Dynamic gadolinium-enhanced T1-weighted images are a critical component of clinical liver MRI examinations for focal lesion detection and characterization. This is typically performed as a 3D acquisition using chemically-selective fat-saturation, as demonstrated by the volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination (VIBE) sequence. A limitation of this approach is that chemically selective fat saturation is prone to suboptimal fat suppression in regions of magnetic field inhomogeneity. While multi-echo Dixon techniques offer a more robust method of achieving fat suppression in the presence of field inhomogeneity, these sequences generally take longer because of the need to obtain multiple echoes. More recently, the feasibility of imaging the upper abdomen using a multiecho Dixon technique within a single breath-hold has benn demonstrated [1,2]. In this study, we compare image quality and lesion detection in post-contrast liver MRI between a standard VIBE sequence that uses chemically-selective fat-saturation (FS-VIBE) and a recently introduced VIBE sequence that achieves fat-suppression via a two-point Dixon algorithm with incorporation of a phase unwrapping step to correct for field inhomogeneity (Dixon-VIBE).