Post-processing water-fat imaging technique for fat suppression in a low-field MR imaging system, evaluation in patients with rheumatoid arthritis

To evaluate the feasibility of the phase difference-based post-processing water-fat imaging method for fat suppression at low-field in imaging of arthritic joints. Thirty joints (wrist, 10; elbow, 10; knee, 10) in 30 patients with rheumatoid arthritis were imaged using a 0.23T MRI unit. Contrast-enhanced T1-weighted (T1w) three-dimensional (3D) gradient-echo (GRE) images with and without fat suppression along with short inversion time inversion-recovery (STIR) images were evaluated by two radiologists. Contrast-enhanced T1w 3D GRE images and corresponding post-processed fat-suppressed images were scored for conspicuity and delineation of enhancing synovial hypertrophy. The uniformity of fat suppression was evaluated between T1w 3D GRE fat-suppressed images and STIR images, and general image quality was estimated for all of the three techniques by consensus. For a quantitative analysis, the enhancing synovial hypertrophy-to-fat contrast-to-noise (CNR) values for the T1W 3D GRE images with and without fat suppression were measured. For comparison, synovial bright signal-to-fat CNR values for the STIR images were measured. The post-processing water-fat imaging technique for fat suppression was successfully applied in all examinations. Conspicuity and delineation of enhancing tissue were superior in fat-suppressed T1w 3D GRE images compared to non-fat-suppressed images (P < 0.0001). As expected, the enhancing synovial hypertrophy tissue-to-fat CNRs were significantly higher in fat-suppressed T1w 3D GRE images compared to non-fat-suppressed images (P < 0.0001). General image quality was assessed to be best in non-fat-suppressed images, and the difference was significant compared to fat-suppressed images (P < 0.05) and STIR images (P < 0.05). The phase difference-based post-processing water-fat imaging technique for fat suppression can be successfully used at low-field, and it provides high-quality fat suppression images in imaging of arthritic joints.