Reducing Respiratory Motion Artifacts in Gadoxetate-Enhanced MRI: Assessing Assisted Breath-Holding Effectiveness

Purpose

This study evaluates the effectiveness of the assisted breath-holding technique in improving image quality by reducing motion artifacts associated with gadoxetate-enhancement during the transient arterial phase compared to the conventional breathing approach in liver MRI.

Methods

We performed a comprehensive analysis of liver MRI scans from 261 consecutive patients subjected to gadoxetate-enhanced MRI. Our focus was on evaluating motion artifact severity during the arterial phase, categorizing the cases into two groups: assisted breath-holding (130/261 cases) and traditional breathing (131/261 cases). Two independent, blinded readers rigorously assessed image quality using a 5-point scale.

Results

A pronounced and statistically significant enhancement in arterial phase image quality scores was observed in patients employing the assisted breath-holding method as compared to the traditional approach (p = 0.006). The incidence of moderate and severe respiratory artifacts during the arterial phase notably decreased from 17.557% to 4.615% following the implementation of the assisted breath-holding technique (χ² = 11.065, p = 0.001).

Conclusion

The utilization of the assisted breath-holding method led to a substantial enhancement in the image quality during the arterial phase of gadoxetate-enhanced liver MRI scans.