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Aims/Objectives
After reading the prescribed readings and following this lecture, students should be able to: Understand and describe the image artefacts presented Describe the most likely cause or fault that led to the image artefact Propose the most likely solution to prevent or minimise the image artefact when the pulse sequence to run again

MRI Image Artefacts

ONPS2436 and ONPS2399

Signal Components of an MRI Image

Image, or FOV, is divided into a matrix One side of this matrix has a frequency component The other side of this matrix is the phase component
Either Phase or Frequency Direction or Axis

Either Frequency or Phase Direction or Axis

Phase Direction or Axis

Signal Components of an MRI Image

Usually, but not always ...
Frequency Direction or Axis

The phase direction of the matrix is the shortest dimension of the image or FOV An artefact is in the phase direction

http://drugster.info/img/ail/28_29_3.jpg

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Phase Mismapping or Ghosting

shadow of moving anatomy appears across the image in the phase direction Usually, but not always, the anatomy responsible is anatomy that always moves in a rhythmic fashion or periodic manner
Pulsatile motion of arteries CSF flow Chest wall (respiration) Epiglotis (swallowing) Eye movement

Common Causes Anatomy moving along the phase encoding gradient (PEC) during pulse sequence
PEC has different amplitude for every TR Frequency encoding gradient (FEC) and slice select gradient (SSG) have the same amplitude for every TR As anatomy moves, it is misplaced, misrepresented or incorrectly positioned in the phase encoding direction because of the change in the phase gradient

Common Causes Time delay between phase encoding and readout (this is inherently a part of the pulse sequence)
Anatomy would have moved, or would be in different locations when ...
Phase encoding occurred When the signal was read at frequency encoding Then, put into K space

Remedy Swap the phase and frequency direction

Artefact doesnt interfere with anatomy of interest
sagittal knee
Popliteal artery

cervical spine
Carotid arteries

No mismapping along frequency axis because frequency encoding performed as signal is read and digitised

Lumbar spine
Abdominal aorta

http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/400547-overview#aw2aab6b7

http://www.mritutor.org/mritutor/images/alias1.jpg

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Remedy Use Pre-saturation Pulses

Nulls signal from a specified area Place this over the area producing the artefact
Over the epiglotis for a sagittal cervical spine

Remedy Use Respiratory Compensation

Respiratory bellows ECG leads and monitoring Used in conjunction with dedicated sequences that trigger (and image) at a particular point in the respiratory cycle

Must place the pre-sat pulse, also, within the FOV

Figure 7a. Motion-related artifacts.

Remedy Cardiac Gating

Respiratory bellows ECG leads and monitoring Both used in conjunction with dedicated sequences that trigger (and image) at a particular point in either the respiratory cycle or the cardiac cycle
Zhuo J , Gullapalli R P Radiographics 2006;26:275-297

2006 by Radiological Society of North America

Aliasing or Wrap Around or Phase Wrap

Anatomy that is located outside the FOV, is placed within the FOV (over other anatomy and/or not anatomically correct position) Common Cause Anatomy outside the FOV can still generate an MRI signal if it is close to the receiver coil
All data must be encoded (allocated a pixel position) Data outside the FOV is most likely to be under sampled; leading to being (mis)mapped into pixels within the FOV.

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Can (and used to) occur in both the frequency and phase direction Frequency has been eliminated
Pulse sequence, software, image reconstruction ...

Remedy Can increase the FOV to include the originating location of the wrapped anatomy
This works for wrap in both the frequency and phase axes

Phase wrap is still a clinical problem

Under sampling in the phase axis All signals have corresponding phase value allocated Signal originating outside FOV (phase axis) is allocated a phase value that has already been given to signal originating from inside FOV
Phase values have been duplicated

Anti-aliasing software
No Phase wrap (NPW) or anti-foldover (AF or AFO)

NPW Oversamples along the phase encoding axis by increasing the number of phase encoding steps performed
Effectively increasing FOV in the phase axis No duplication of phase values (signals outside the set FOV has different phase value to that inside the set FOV) This extended part of FOV along phase axis is discarded during reconstruction, only the set FOV is displayed

NPW the negatives Effectively enlarging FOV in phase direction leads to a loss in spatial resolution
Need to increase number of phase encoding steps to compensate for this This increases scan time
Can reduce NEX or NSA to compensate for this

Chemical Shift
Appears as dark edge/band at a fat and water interface Occurs along the frequency encoding axis only

http://www.mritutor.org/mritutor/i mages/alias2.jpg

http://mriforyou.blogspot.com/2010 /05/artifact-know-how.html

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Cause Caused by different local environments of fat and water

Fat; hydrogen with carbon Water; hydrogen with oxygen

Precessional frequency difference can also be expressed in arbitrary units, parts per million, ppm
Regardless (or independent) of main magnetic field strength, it is always 3.5 ppm From this figure, you can calculate the chemical shift between fat and water at different magnetic field strengths

fat precesses at lower frequency than water

Difference in precessional frequency is proportional to the main magnetic field strength At 1.5T, difference is 220 Hz

Receive Band Width, RBW

Determines range of frequencies that must be mapped across the FOV FOV is then divided into pixels Number of pixels determined by matrix size Eg; if 256 frequency samples are selected, then the RBW must be mapped across 256 pixels in the FOV The RBW and the number of frequency samples determine the bandwidth of each pixel

Example and calculation If RBW is 16kHz

Actually means +/- 16kHz So 32,000 Hz are mapped across FOV

If 256 frequency samples are selected

FOV is divided into 256 frequency pixels

Each pixel then has an individual frequency range of 125 Hz (32,000 Hz / 256 Hz)

Example and calculation At 1.5T, precessional frequency difference is 220 Hz 220 Hz / 125 Hz = 1.76
Fat and water protons (at an interface, or adjacent to each other) are mapped 1.76 pixels apart
Otherwise referred to as a pixel shift of 1.76

Example and calculation The dimension of this artefact or separation depends on FOV if FOV is 24 cm
256 frequency pixels results in pixels that are 0.93 mm in size A pixel shift of 1.76 results in a chemical shift of 1.63 mm (0.93 x 1.76)

As FOV increases, the difference increases and artefact is more noticable

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Remedy Try to use ...

Lower field strength (may not be possible as trend is to move to higher field strengths) Use a FOV that is as small as possible for the anatomy being imaged Use the widest possible RBW (in keeping with good SNR)

If you reduce the RBW in order to increase the SNR ...

Use the chemical saturation option to saturate the signal from either fat or water

Figure 1b. Chemical shift artifact of the second type (cancellation artifact).

Chemical Misregistration
When fat and water are in phase, their signals are added When fat and water are out of phase, their signals cancel each other out
This is chemical misregistration artefact A ring of dark signal around organs where fat and water interfaces occur within the same voxel Kidneys Occurs in the phase direction Most noticeable in gradient echo pulse sequences
Akisik F M et al. Radiographics 2007;27:1433-1444
2007 by Radiological Society of North America

Cause Results from precessional frequency difference between fat and water Fat and water travel at different speeds around their precessional paths At certain times they are at the same position and are in phase and at other times they are out of phase (different locations) This relates back to the TE value of the pulse sequence and the magnetic field strength

Remedy Need to select TE value that matches the periodicity of fat and water at the magnetic field strength of the magnet
At 1.5T, use a TE that is a multiple of 4.2 ms

Use spin echo based sequences

180 degree RF pulses are effective at compensating for phase differences between fat and water

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However, chemical misregistration can be deliberately exploited to demonstrate the boundaries of certain anatomical structures ...
... more about this in another lecture ...

http://mriforyou.blogspot.com/2010/05/artifact-know-how.html

(Gibbs) Truncation Artefact

A banding artefact at the interfaces of high and low signal
Common on sagittal images of the spine Can occur in other anatomical areas

Cause Results from under-sampling of data such that high and low signal interfaces are incorrectly represented on the resulting image Occurs in the phase direction Produces a low intensity band running through a high intensity area

Remedy Increase the number of phase encoding steps

Eg, increase your image matrix Use 256 x 256 instead of 256 x 128

http://www.ajronline.org/content/190/5/1396/F25.expansion An Introduction to the Fourier Transform: Relationship to MRI

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Magnetic Susceptibility
Two main features of this artefact are ...
Distortion of image Signal voids

Causes Metal objects within the imaging volume Naturally occurring iron content at haemorrhagic sites More prominent in gradient echo sequences
Cannot compensate for phase differences

Explanation Magnetic susceptibility means the ability of a substance to become magnetised Metal can cause tissues to magnetise
Results in a difference in precessional frequency and phase Causes dephasing at interface of these tissues and a signal loss

Remedy In some instances, magnetic susceptibility artefact can aid diagnosis, so we may not want to rectify it

Remedy Remove all metal objects from patient before they get into MRI scanner Use FSE sequences instead of gradient echo Decrease the TE (if possible and maintain image weighting)
Long TE allow for more dephasing between tissue susceptibility differences Wider RBW help to reduce TE
http://mriforyou.blogspot.com/2011/07/artifact-know-how-part-ii.html

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Figure 14. Sagittal MR image shows a magnetic susceptibility artifact that resulted from the presence of metallic dental fillings.

Zhuo J , Gullapalli R P Radiographics 2006;26:275-297

2006 by Radiological Society of North America

Difference Between Cross Excitation and Cross Talk

Cross Excitation Adjacent slices, produced within the same pulse sequence, have different image contrast RF excitation pulse and slice profile
Width of pulse should be half its amplitude This can vary by up to 10% Nuclei in slices adjacent to RF excitation pulse may become excited by it

Cross Excitation RF excitation pulse and slice profile

Width of pulse should be half its amplitude This can vary by up to 10% Nuclei in slices adjacent to RF excitation pulse may become excited by it (may receive enough energy to be pushed to their transverse plane) They become saturated when their slice receives its dedicated RF excitation pulse

Cross talk Same effect as cross excitation

adjacent slices or adjacent areas within a slice have different image contrasts

Remedy Cross Talk Cross talk can never be completely eliminated (natural energy dissipation by a nuclei)

However, not generated by excitation or by addition of RF energy

Cross talk produced by energy dissipation to adjacent slices or nuclei As nuclei lose their energy due to spin-lattice relaxation, they dissipate this energy and adjacent nuclei/slices absorb this

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Remedy Cross Excitation Can be reduced by having the gap/space between slices set at 30% of the value of the slice thickness
Reduces likelihood of RF energy exciting adjacent slices eg; if using slice thickness of 5mm, then set a gap or skip of 2mm (40% of 5mm) instead of 1mm (20%)

Remedy Cross Excitation Use the interleave option

Pulse sequence excites all the odd numbered slices and then excites all the even numbered slices

Zipper
Dense line running across the image Occurs at one frequency location
Frequency direction

http://mriforyou.blogspot.com/2010/05/artifact-know-how.html

Cause Extraneous RF entering the MRI scan room at a certain frequency, allowing it to be detected by MRI receiver Caused by a leak in the RF shielding (Faraday cage) of the room
Usually the door is not shut properly

Remedy Shut the door Observe for objects within the MRI scan room that may oscillate (at any frequency) when the pulse sequence is running Make sure coil is plugged in properly and components of coil all locked in place If Faraday cage is damaged, then need to call engineer

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Magic Angle
Most likely to occur in MSK imaging Seen in tendons High intensity signal Can mimic pathology, such as a tendon tear

http://www.ajronline.org/content/190/5/1396/F17.expansion An Introduction to the Fourier Transform: Relationship to MRI

Cause The anatomical structure (or tightly bound fibres within it) lie at an angle of 55 degrees to the main magnetic field
Results in an alteration of its signalintensity

Remedy Change the TE (while still maintaining image weighting)

If high intensity signal is gone, then it is an artefact and not a tear

Reposition the patient or anatomical area

MRI Image Artefacts

ONPS2436 and ONPS2399 THE END
http://www.mrtip.com/serv1.php?type=art&sub= Magic%20Angle%20Effect%20(Artifa ct) http://www.mritutor.org/mritutor/magica.htm

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