Study of dynamic pituitary magnetic resonance imaging using three-dimensional turbo spin echo method at 3 Tesla MRI

Dynamic magnetic resonance (MR) imaging for pituitary microadenomas is usually performed in 2-dimensional (2D) multi-slice method which used coronal T(1)-weighted imaging with turbo spin echo (SE) method. However, on MR images using 2D multi-slice method, the detectability of small lesions between slices may decrease. Therefore, the aim of our study is to investigate the influence that imaging parameters give to T(1)-weighted image with 3-dimensional (3D) turbo SE method, and to examine the use of 3D turbo SE method as the detection of pituitary microadenomas. We can plan the shortening of imaging time by shortening repetition time (TR), because the contrast to noise ratio (CNR) in the 3D turbo SE method was superior enough than that of the 2D turbo SE method. In addition, low refocusing flip angle induced the decrease of CNR, but it has the effect which decreases flow-induced artifacts. Dynamic MR imaging which used coronal T(1)-weighted imaging with 3D turbo SE method is feasible by utilizing the reduction of TR and low refocusing flip angle, as well as the combination of parallel imaging and radial sampling.