Abstract

Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has become a valuable imaging modality in ophthalmology, especially for the diagnosis and treatment planning of patients with uveal melanoma, the most common primary intra-ocular tumor. We aim to develop and evaluate the value of silent Zero Echo Time (ZTE) MRI to image patients with ocular tumors at 7Tesla. Therefore, ZTE and different types of magnetization-prepared ZTE (FLAIR, SPIR, T2 and Saturation recovery), have been developed. After an initial validation with 7 healthy subjects, nine patients with an eye tumor have been evaluated. The ZTE scans were compared to their Cartesian equivalent in terms of contrast, motion-sensitivity, diagnostic quality and patient comfort. All volunteers and especially the patients reported a more comfortable experience during the ZTE scans, which had at least a 10 dB lower sound pressure. The image contrast in the native ZTE was poor, but in the different magnetization-prepared ZTE, the eye lens, cornea and retina were clearly discriminated. Overall the T2-prepared scan yielded the best contrast, especially between tumor and healthy tissue, and proved to be robust against eye motion. Although the intrinsic 3D nature of the ZTE-technique provides an accurate analysis of the tumor morphology, the quality of the ZTE-images is lower than their Cartesian equivalent. In conclusion, the quality of magnetization-prepared ZTE images is sufficient to assess the 3D tumor morphology, but insufficient for more detailed evaluations. As such this technique can be an option for patients who cannot comply with the sound-levels of Cartesian scans, but for other patients the conventional Cartesian scans offer a better image quality.

Highlights

  • ObjectivesWe aim to develop and evaluate the value of silent Zero Echo Time (ZTE) Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to image patients with ocular tumors at 7Tesla

  • As expected the native Zero Echo Time (ZTE) contrast is poor and mainly proton density weighted, some T1 contrast can be seen between the sclera and the vitreous body, due to the relative long T1 of the vitreous body of approximately 6 s[19]

  • The saturation recovery contrast (SAT)- and fluid-attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR)-prepared ZTE scans, shown in (Fig 2B and 2E), both result in images in which the signal from the vitreous body is suppressed due to its long T1

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Summary

Objectives

We aim to develop and evaluate the value of silent Zero Echo Time (ZTE) MRI to image patients with ocular tumors at 7Tesla

Methods
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