Subject(s)
Headache , Vision Disorders , Female , Humans , Adult , Headache/etiology , Vision Disorders/etiologyABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE. The objective of this article is to review strategies to reduce the use of gadolinium-based contrast agents for pediatric abdominal MRI. CONCLUSION. Alternative contrast agents that do not contain gadolinium and unenhanced pediatric abdominal MRI protocols have shown clinical utility. Sequences such as DWI and new multicontrast MRI pulse sequences offer promise for tissue characterization without IV contrast agents. Patients requiring repeat MRI to evaluate for change in focal disease can be monitored with unenhanced abdominal MRI.
Subject(s)
Abdomen/diagnostic imaging , Contrast Media/administration & dosage , Gadolinium/administration & dosage , Magnetic Resonance Imaging/methods , Child , Contrast Media/adverse effects , Drug Hypersensitivity , Gadolinium/adverse effects , HumansABSTRACT
Long acquisition times can limit the use of MRI in pediatric patients, and the use of sedation or general anesthesia is frequently necessary to facilitate diagnostic examinations. The use of sedation or anesthesia has disadvantages including increased cost and imaging time and potential risks to the patient. Reductions in imaging time may decrease or eliminate the need for sedation or general anesthesia. Over the past decade, a number of imaging techniques that can decrease imaging time have become commercially available. These products have been used increasingly in clinical practice and include parallel imaging, simultaneous multisection imaging, radial k-space acquisition, compressed sensing MRI reconstruction, and automated protocol selection software. The underlying concepts, supporting data, current clinical applications, and available products for each of these strategies are reviewed in this article. In addition, emerging techniques that are still under investigation may provide further reductions in imaging time, including artificial intelligence-based reconstruction, gradient-controlled aliasing sampling and reconstruction, three-dimensional MR spectroscopy, and prospective motion correction. The preliminary results for these techniques are also discussed. ©RSNA, 2020 See discussion on this article by Greer and Vasanawala.