First clinical application of a novel T1 mapping of the whole brain

Abstract

Background The aim of this study was to evaluate the reproducibility and clinical value of the novel single-shot T1 mapping method for rapid and accurate multi-slice coverage of the whole brain, described by Wang et al. 2015. Methods At a field strength of 3 Tesla, T1 mappings of 139 patients (51 of them without pathologic findings) and two repeats of five volunteers were performed at 0.5 mm in-plane resolution. Mean T1 values were determined in 18 manually segmented regions-of-interest without pathologic findings. Reproducibility of the repeated scans was calculated using mean coefficient of variations. Pathologies were grouped and separately evaluated. Results The mean age of the cohort was 49 (range 1–95 years). T1 relaxation times for ordinary brain and pathologies were in accordance with the literature values. Intra- and inter-subject reproducibility was excellent, and mean coefficient of variations were 2.4% and 3.8%, respectively. Discussion The novel rapid T1 mapping method is a reliable magnetic resonance imaging technique for identifying and quantifying normal brain structures and may thus serve as a basis for assessing pathologies. The fast and parallel online calculation enables a comfortable use in everyday clinical practice. We see a possible clinical value in a large spectrum of diseases, which should be investigated in further studies.