Chimowitz et al refer to preliminary data 4 suggesting increased fibrinogen in patients with SEC. We have shown 5 that fibrinogen is an independent risk factor for left atrial SEC in patients with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation and that both fibrinogen and SEC are independently associated with embolic events. The relationship between SEC and embolism therefore appears complex, comprising both ...

Dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) is widely used for breast lesion differentiation. Manual segmentation in DCE-MRI is difficult and open to viewer interpretation. In this paper, an automatic segmentation method based on image manifold revealing was introduced to overcome the problems of the currently used method. First, high dimensional datasets were constructed fro...

OBJECTIVES This study was designed to determine the blood elements responsible for spontaneous echocardiographic contrast. BACKGROUND Spontaneous contrast or "smoke" is an echocardiographic image usually found in low flow conditions. Two blood elements, erythrocytes and platelets, have been related to the generation of smoke. METHODS The echogenicity of porcine blood products was assessed i...

Objectives: In this prospective preclinical study, we evaluated T1-weighted signal intensity in the deep cerebellar nuclei (CN) and globus pallidus (GP) up to 24 days after repeated administration of linear and macrocyclic gadoliniumbased contrast agents (GBCAs) using homologous imaging and evaluation methods as in the recently published retrospective clinical studies. In a second part of the s...

A new method is introduced for increasing the efficiency in multislice single spin-echo MRI. The method interlaces the excitation and measurement of different slices, resulting in an effective use of the echo delay time between RF excitation and reception. Under certain conditions, the method allows for scan time reduction compared to standard single spin-echo MRI, in particular for long echo t...

Echo-planar imaging with gradient echo allows whole-brain images to be rapidly acquired. However, its main limitation is that magnetic field inhomogeneities in regions of the brain close to bone and air-filled sinuses result in reduced signal-to-noise ratio and signal loss. In particular this is a problem for imaging the temporal lobes, and can therefore affect the results of some language-rela...

Synopsis Parallel imaging relies on fully-sampled calibration data to estimate k-space kernels or sensitivities used to reconstruct subsampled acquisitions. Emerging techniques use low-rank modeling, or joint estimation of sensitivities and image content via nonlinear optimization, to reduce the dependency on calibration data. In a typical study, images at multiple echoes/contrasts are acquired...

Introduction: A stimulated-echo sequence with high sensitivity to diffusion and flow is shown here to provide a valuable contrast mechanism for hyperpolarized C metabolic imaging (1-4). This mechanism can highlight stationary metabolites, while suppressing signal from flowing metabolites. This helps to distinguish whether C-pyruvate is converted to Clactate within the tissue or whether the C-la...