Implications of SENSE MR in routine clinical practice.

Sensitivity encoding (SENSE) uses multiple MRI receive coil elements to encode spatial information in addition to traditional gradient encoding. Requiring less gradient encodings translates into shorter scan times, which is extremely beneficial in many clinical applications. SENSE is available to routine diagnostic imaging for the past 2 years.

Preoperative evaluation of patients awaiting liver transplantation: comparison of multiphasic contrast-enhanced 3D magnetic resonance to helical computed tomography examinations.

Purpose: To determine the feasibility of using a multiphasic magnetic resonance (MR) examination to evaluate the hepatic arterial anatomy and parenchyma in patients awaiting orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT).

Materials And Methods: Twenty consecutive patients awaiting OLT underwent multiphasic MR (using a T1-weighted 3D gadolinium-enhanced gradient-echo (GRE) sequence and two separate injections of contrast material) and computed tomography (CT) imaging; both imaging studies were performed within a 1-week period for each patient. Quantitative and qualitative assessment of the hepatic arterial system on MR data was performed.