Periodically rotated overlapping parallel lines with enhanced reconstruction-based diffusion tensor imaging. Comparison with echo planar imaging-based diffusion tensor imaging.

Abstract

To evaluate diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) based on periodically rotated overlapping parallel lines with enhanced reconstruction (PROPELLER) compared with DTI based on single-shot echo planar imaging (EPI). Diffusion tensor data were acquired with PROPELLER (PROPELLER-DTI, 3 NEX), EPI (EPI-DTI2, 16 NEX) with the same acquisition time (11.4 minutes) and with EPI (EPI-DTI1, number of excitations = 4) with a shorter acquisition time (2.8 minutes). Regions of interest were set in the genu and splenium of the corpus callosum, as determined on T2-weighted fast spin echo images and fractional anisotropy (FA) maps, separately. Two neuroradiologists visually evaluated image distortion and quality in the supra- and infratentorial structures. In the genu, standard deviation determined by respective FA maps was decreased in order of PROPELLER-DTI, EPI-DTI1, and EPI-DTI2. Both EPI-DTI sequences were quantitatively superior in the splenium, but PROPELLER-DTI was less distorted. Periodically rotated overlapping parallel lines with enhanced reconstruction-DTI could become a complementary tool when qualitatively evaluating seriously distorted structures.