Table 3.
Magnetic Resonance Cholangiopancreatography (MRCP), Injection of Extracellular or Interstitial CM
| Description | T2w Coronal |
T1w In/Out | T2w Axial |
T2w FatSat |
DWI b= 0, 50, 500 |
T1w Pre- CM |
Bolus Tracking |
||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arterial Portal Venous |
Delayed 3D MRCP |
2D MRCP | |||||||
| Sequence | SSFSE | 3D SPGR (2D SPGR) |
SSFSE | FRFSE | EPI | 3D SPGR | 3D SPGR | 3D FRFSE | SSFSE |
| Plane | Coronal | Axial | Axial | Axial | Axial | Axial | Axial | Coronal | Coronal |
| Slice Thickness (mm) |
4 | 4–5 (7) | 4 | 7 | 7 | 4–5 | 4–5 | 1.4 | 40 |
| Gap (mm) | 0 | −2 to −2.5 (1) | 0 | 1 | 1 | −2 to −2.5 | −2 to −2.5 | −0.7 | (9 slices radial) |
| Fat suppression | – | (Dixon) | – | Spectr. | (Spectr.) | Dixon/IR | Dixon/IR | – | – |
| TE1/TE2 (ms) (out/ in |
100 | 1.1/2.1 (2.2/4.4) | 100 | 102 | Min (<90) | 1.4–2 | 1.4–2 | ~400 | ~ 1100 |
| TR (mm) | – | 4.5 (210) | – | 2500 | 4000 (2000) | 4.5 | 4.5 | −2300 | – |
| Flip angle | 90 | 12 (90) | 90 | 90 | 90 | 12 | 12 | 90 | 90 |
| ETL | – | – | – | 13 | – | – | – | 23 | – |
| NEX | 0.5 | <1 (1) | 0.5 | 1 (3) | 1 (12) | <1 | <1 | 1 | |
| Phase enc. steps | 224 (256) | 192 (160) | 224 (256) | 224 (192) | 128 | 192 | 192 | 320 (256) | 512 (320) |
| Frequency steps | 320 (256) | 320 (256) | 320 (256) | 320 | 128 | 300 | 300 | 320 (256) | 256 |
| Breath | BH | BH | BH | BH | BH/Trig. | BH | BH | Trig. | BH |
| Notes | Peak + 5 s | Peak + 60 s | Peak + 180 s | ||||||
Example of data for 3 T magnets; numbers in brackets are for 1.5 T. T2-weighted images are acquired before injection of CM, whereas MRCP is performed after the administration of CM. BH, breath-hold; Dixon, Dixon technique; enc., encoding; ETL, echo train length; FatSat, fat saturated; FSE, fast spin echo; IR, inversion recovery; In/out, in-phase and out-of-phase; NEX, number of excitations; Peak, aortic peak detected with bolus tracking; pre-CM, before contrast administration; Spectr., chemically selective fat suppression; SSFSE, half Fourier single-shot FSE; Trig, respiratory triggering; w, weighted.