Compressed SENSE acceleration factor influence on magnetic resonance image quality in patients with endometrial cancer.

Objectives: To investigate the impact of compressed sensing - sensitivity encoding (CS-SENSE) acceleration factor on the diagnostic performance of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) within standard female pelvis protocol in patients with endometrial cancer.

Methods: T2-weighted turbo spin echo (TSE) sequence from standard female pelvic MRI protocol was chosen due to its long acquisition time and essential role in the evaluation of morphological characteristics of the female pelvic anatomical structures. Fully sampled reference scans and multiple prospectively 2x to 5x under-sampled CS-SENSE scans were acquired. Retrospectively, under-sampled scans were compared to fully sampled scans and visually assessed for image quality and diagnostic quality by two independent radiologists dedicated to urogenital imaging with different experience levels.

Results: Images obtained with CS-SENSE accelerated acquisition were of diagnostically acceptable quality at up to 3x acceleration for T2 TSE in both axial and sagittal planes (with an acquisition time reduction of 64 %). Among all evaluated uterine structures, the junctional zone proved to be most sensitive to the influence of the acceleration factor. Statistical analysis showed statistically significant differences between image interpretation qualities between two radiologists of different experience levels (p < 0.05).

Conclusion: CS-SENSE accelerated T2 TSE sequence of the female pelvis shows image quality similar to that of conventional acquisitions with reduced acquisition time. CS-SENSE can moderately reduce scan time, providing many benefits without losing the image quality.