Browsing by Author "Schneider, Alina"

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    Extended MRI-based PET motion correction for cardiac PET/MRI
    (2024) Aizaz, Mueez; Van der Pol, Jochem A. J.; Schneider, Alina; Munoz, Camila; Holtackers, Robert J.; Van Cauteren, Yvonne; Van Langen, Herman; Meeder, Joan G.; Rahel, Braim M.; Wierts, Roel; Botnar, Rene M.; Prieto, Claudia; Moonen, Rik P. M.; Kooi, M. E.
    Purpose: A 2D image navigator (iNAV) based 3D whole-heart sequence has been used to perform MRI and PET non-rigid respiratory motion correction for hybrid PET/MRI. However, only the PET data acquired during the acquisition of the 3D whole-heart MRI is corrected for respiratory motion. This study introduces and evaluates an MRI-based respiratory motion correction method of the complete PET data. Methods Twelve oncology patients scheduled for an additional cardiac 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (18F-FDG) PET/MRI and 15 patients with coronary artery disease (CAD) scheduled for cardiac 18F-Choline (18F-FCH) PET/MRI were included. A 2D iNAV recorded the respiratory motion of the myocardium during the 3D whole-heart coronary MR angiography (CMRA) acquisition (~ 10 min). A respiratory belt was used to record the respiratory motion throughout the entire PET/MRI examination (~ 30–90 min). The simultaneously acquired iNAV and respiratory belt signal were used to divide the acquired PET data into 4 bins. The binning was then extended for the complete respiratory belt signal. Data acquired at each bin was reconstructed and combined using iNAV-based motion fields to create a respiratory motion-corrected PET image. Motion-corrected (MC) and non-motion-corrected (NMC) datasets were compared. Gating was also performed to correct cardiac motion. The SUVmax and TBRmax values were calculated for the myocardial wall or a vulnerable coronary plaque for the 18F-FDG and 18F-FCH datasets, respectively. Results A pair-wise comparison showed that the SUVmax and TBRmax values of the motion corrected (MC) datasets were significantly higher than those for the non-motion-corrected (NMC) datasets (8.2 ± 1.0 vs 7.5 ± 1.0, p < 0.01 and 1.9 ± 0.2 vs 1.2 ± 0.2, p < 0.01, respectively). In addition, the SUVmax and TBRmax of the motion corrected and gated (MC_G) reconstructions were also higher than that of the non-motion-corrected but gated (NMC_G) datasets, although for the TBRmax this difference was not statistically significant (9.6 ± 1.3 vs 9.1 ± 1.2, p = 0.02 and 2.6 ± 0.3 vs 2.4 ± 0.3, p = 0.16, respectively). The respiratory motion-correction did not lead to a change in the signal to noise ratio. Conclusion The proposed respiratory motion correction method for hybrid PET/MRI improved the image quality of cardiovascular PET scans by increased SUVmax and TBRmax values while maintaining the signal-to-noise ratio. Trial registration METC162043 registered 01/03/2017.
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    Free-breathing, Contrast Agent-free Whole-Heart MTC-BOOST Imaging: Single-Center Validation Study in Adult Congenital Heart Disease
    (2023) Fotaki, Anastasia; Pushparajah, Kuberan; Hajhosseiny, Reza; Schneider, Alina; Alam, Harith; Ferreira, Joana; Neji, Radhouene; Kunze, Karl P.; Frigiola, Alessandra; Botnar, Rene M.; Prieto, Claudia
    Purpose: To assess the clinical performance of the three-dimensional, free-breathing, Magnetization Transfer Contrast Bright-and-black blOOd phase-SensiTive (MTC-BOOST) sequence in adult congenital heart disease (ACHD).Materials and Methods: In this prospective study, participants with ACHD undergoing cardiac MRI between July 2020 and March 2021 were scanned with the clinical T2-prepared balanced steady-state free precession sequence and proposed MTC-BOOST sequence. Four cardiologists scored their diagnostic confidence on a four-point Likert scale for sequential segmental analysis on images acquired with each sequence. Scan times and diagnostic confidence were compared using the Mann-Whitney test. Coaxial vascular dimensions at three anatomic landmarks were measured, and agreement between the research sequence and the corresponding clinical sequence was assessed with Bland-Altman analysis.Results: The study included 120 participants (mean age, 33 years +/- 13 [SD]; 65 men). The mean acquisition time of the MTC-BOOST sequence was significantly lower compared with that of the conventional clinical sequence (9 minutes +/- 2 vs 14 minutes +/- 5; P < .001). Diagnostic confidence was higher for the MTC-BOOST sequence compared with the clinical sequence (mean, 3.9 +/- 0.3 vs 3.4 +/- 0.7; P < .001). Narrow limits of agreement and mean bias less than 0.08 cm were found between the research and clinical vascu-lar measurements.Conclusion: The MTC-BOOST sequence provided efficient, high-quality, and contrast agent-free three-dimensional whole-heart imag-ing in ACHD, with shorter, more predictable acquisition time and improved diagnostic confidence compared with the reference stan-dard clinical sequence.
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    Non-rigid motion-compensated 3D whole-heart T2 mapping in a hybrid 3T PET-MR system
    (2024) Schneider, Alina; Munoz, Camila; Hua, Alina; Ellis, Sam; Jeljeli, Sami; Kunze, Karl P.; Neji, Radhouene; Reader, Andrew J.; Reyes, Eliana; Ismail, Tevfik F.; Botnar, Rene M.; Prieto, Claudia
    Purpose: Simultaneous PET-MRI improves inflammatory cardiac disease diagnosis. However, challenges persist in respiratory motion and mis-registration between free-breathing 3D PET and 2D breath-held MR images. We propose a free-breathing non-rigid motion-compensated 3D T-2-mapping sequence enabling whole-heart myocardial tissue characterization in a hybrid 3T PET-MR system and provides non-rigid respiratory motion fields to correct also simultaneously acquired PET data.Methods: Free-breathing 3D whole-heart T-2-mapping was implemented on a hybrid 3T PET-MRI system. Three datasets were acquired with different T-2-preparation modules (0, 28, 55 ms) using 3-fold under sampled variable-density Cartesian trajectory. Respiratory motion was estimated via virtual 3D image navigators, enabling multi-contrast non-rigid motion-corrected MR reconstruction. T-2-maps were computed using dictionary-matching. Approach was tested in phantom, 8 healthy subjects, 14 MR only and 2 PET-MR patients with suspected cardiac disease and compared with spin echo reference (phantom) and clinical 2D T-2-mapping (in-vivo).Results: Phantom results show a high correlation (R-2 = 0.996) between proposed approach and gold standard 2D T-2 mapping. In-vivo 3D T-2-mapping average values in healthy subjects (39.0 +/- 1.4 ms) and patients (healthy tissue) (39.1 +/- 1.4 ms) agree with conventional 2D T-2-mapping (healthy = 38.6 +/- 1.2 ms, patients = 40.3 +/- 1.7 ms). Bland-Altman analysis reveals bias of 1.8 ms and 95% limits of agreement (LOA) of -2.4-6 ms for healthy subjects, and bias of 1.3 ms and 95% LOA of -1.9 to 4.6 ms for patients.Conclusion: Validated efficient 3D whole-heart T-2-mapping at hybrid 3T PET-MRI provides myocardial inflammation characterization and non-rigid respiratory motion fields for simultaneous PET data correction. Comparable T-2 values were achieved with both 3D and 2D methods. Improved image quality was observed in the PET images after MR-based motion correction.
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    Recent advances in PET-MRI for Cardiac Sarcoidosis
    (2022) Muñoz, Camila; Schneider, Alina; Botnar, René Michael; Prieto Vásquez, Claudia
    The diagnosis of cardiac sarcoidosis (CS) remains challenging. While only a small fraction of patients with systemic sarcoidosis present with clinically symptomatic CS, cardiac involvement has been associated with adverse outcomes, such as ventricular arrhythmia, heart block, heart failure and sudden cardiac death. Despite the clinical relevance of having an early and accurate diagnosis of CS, there is no gold-standard technique available for the assessment of CS. Non-invasive PET and MR imaging have shown promise in the detection of different histopathological features of CS. More recently, the introduction of hybrid PET-MR scanners has enabled the acquisition of these hallmarks in a single scan, demonstrating higher sensitivity and specificity for CS detection and risk stratification than with either imaging modality alone. This article describes recent developments in hybrid PET-MR imaging for improving the diagnosis of CS and discusses areas of future development that could make cardiac PET-MRI the preferred diagnostic tool for the comprehensive assessment of CS.
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    Whole-heart non-rigid motion corrected coronary MRA with autofocus virtual 3D iNAV
    (ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC, 2022) Schneider, Alina; Cruz, Gastao; Munoz, Camila; Hajhosseiny, Reza; Kuestner, Thomas; Kunze, Karl P.; Neji, Radhouene; Botnar, Rene M.; Prieto, Claudia
    Purpose: Respiratory motion-corrected coronary MR angiography (CMRA) has shown promise for assessing coronary disease. By incorporating coronal 2D image navigators (iNAVs), respiratory motion can be corrected for in a beat-to-beat basis using translational correction in the foot-head (FH) and right-left (RL) directions and in a bin-to-bin basis using non-rigid motion correction addressing the remaining FH, RL and anterior-posterior (AP) motion. However, with this approach beat-to-beat AP motion is not corrected for. In this work we investigate the effect of remaining beat-to-beat AP motion and propose a virtual 3D iNAV that exploits autofocus motion correction to enable beat-to-beat AP and improved RL intra-bin motion correction. Methods: Free-breathing 3D whole-heart CMRA was acquired using a 3-fold undersampled variable-density Cartesian trajectory. Beat-to-beat 3D translational respiratory motion was estimated from the 2D iNAVs in FH and RL directions, and in AP direction with autofocus assuming a linear relationship between FH and AP movement of the heart. Furthermore, motion in RL was also refined using autofocus. This virtual 3D (v3D) iNAV was incorporated in a non-rigid motion correction (NRMC) framework. The proposed approach was tested in 12 cardiac patients, and visible vessel length and vessel sharpness for the right (RCA) and left (LAD) coronary arteries were compared against 2D iNAV-based NRMC. Results: Average vessel sharpness and length in v3D iNAV NRMC was improved compared to 2D iNAV NRMC (vessel sharpness: RCA: 56 +/- 1% vs 52 +/- 11%, LAD: 49 +/- 8% vs 49 +/- 7%; visible vessel length: RCA: 5.98 +/- 1.37 cm vs 5.81 +/- 1.62 cm, LAD: 5.95 +/- 1.85 cm vs 4.83 +/- 1.56 cm), however these improvements were not statistically significant. Conclusion: The proposed virtual 3D iNAV NRMC reconstruction further improved NRMC CMRA image quality by reducing artefacts arising from residual AP motion, however the level of improvement was subject-dependent.