Comparison of Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Compressed Sensing (ACS) and Routine Two-Dimensional Sequences on Lumbar Spine Imaging

Abstract

He Sui,1,* Yu Gong,2,* Lin Liu,1 Zhongwen Lv,1 Yunfei Zhang,3 Yongming Dai,3 Zhanhao Mo1 1Department of Radiology, China-Japan Union Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, People’s Republic of China; 2Medical Imaging Department, Linyi People’s Hospital, Linyi, People’s Republic of China; 3MR Collaboration, Central Research Institute, United Imaging Healthcare, Shanghai, People’s Republic of China*These authors contributed equally to this workCorrespondence: Zhanhao Mo, Department of Radiology, China-Japan Union Hospital of Jilin University, No. 126 Xiantai St., Erdao Dist., Changchun, People’s Republic of China, Email [email protected]: To evaluate and compare the image quality and diagnostic accuracy of Artificial Intelligence-assisted Compressed Sensing (ACS) sequences for lumbar disease, as an acceleration method for MRI combining parallel imaging, half-Fourier, compressed sensing and neural network and routine 2D sequences for lumbar spine.Methods: We collected data from 82 healthy subjects and 213 patients who used 2D ACS accelerated sequences to examine the lumbar spine while 95 healthy subjects and 234 patients used routine 2D sequences. Acquisitions included axial T2WI, sagittal T2WI, T1WI, and T2-fs sequences. All obtained images of these subjects were analyzed in the light of calculating image quality factors such as signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) for selected regions of interest. The lumbar image quality, artifacts and visibility of lesion structure were assessed by two radiologists independently. Differences between the evaluation values above were tested for statistical significance by the Wilcoxon signed-ranks test. Inter-observer agreements of image quality between two radiologists were measured using Cohen’s kappa correlation coefficient.Results: The ACS accelerated sequences not only reduced the scanning time by 18.9%, but also retained basically the same image quality as the routine 2D sequences in both healthy subjects and patients. Artifacts are less produced on ACS accelerated sequences compared with routine 2D sequences (p 0.05). Moreover, inter-observer agreement between two radiologists in scoring image quality was substantial consistently for ACS accelerated sequences and routine sequences (kappa = 0.622– 0.986).Conclusion: Compared with routine 2D sequences, ACS accelerated sequences allow for faster lumbar spine imaging with similar imaging quality and present reliable diagnostic accuracy, which can potentially improve workflow and patient comfort in musculoskeletal examinations.Keywords: accelerated MRI, lumbar imaging, AI-assisted compressed sensing

Keywords

• accelerated mri
• lumbar imaging
• ai-assisted compressed sensing