Improved cerebral microbleeds detection using their magnetic signature on T2*-phase-contrast: A comparison study in a clinical setting.

Introduction/purpose: In vivo detection of cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) from T2* gradient recalled echo (GRE) magnitude image suffers from low specificity, modest inter-rater reproducibility and is biased by its sensitivity to acquisition parameters. New methods were proposed for improving this identification, but they mostly rely on 3D acquisitions, not always feasible in clinical practice. A fast 2D phase processing technique for computing internal field maps (IFM) has been shown to make it possible to characterize CMBs through their magnetic signature in routine clinical setting, based on 2D multi-slice acquisitions.

2D harmonic filtering of MR phase images in multicenter clinical setting: toward a magnetic signature of cerebral microbleeds.

Cerebral microbleeds (CMBs) have emerged as a new imaging marker of small vessel disease. Composed of hemosiderin, CMBs are paramagnetic and can be detected with MRI sequences sensitive to magnetic susceptibility (typically, gradient recalled echo T2* weighted images). Nevertheless, their identification remains challenging on T2* magnitude images because of confounding structures and lesions.