Spiral Perfusion Imaging With Consecutive Echoes (SPICE™) for the Simultaneous Mapping of DSC- and DCE-MRI Parameters in Brain Tumor Patients: Theory and Initial Feasibility

Dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE) and dynamic susceptibility contrast (DSC) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are the perfusion imaging techniques most frequently used to probe the angiogenic character of brain neoplasms. With these methods, T1- and T2/T2*-weighted imaging sequences are used to image the distribution of gadolinium (Gd)-based contrast agents. However, it is well known that Gd exhibits combined T1, T2, and T2* shortening effects in tissue, and therefore, the results of both DCE- and DSC-MRI can be confounded by these opposing effects. In particular, residual susceptibility effects compete with T1 shortening, which can confound DCE-MRI parameters, whereas dipolar T1 and T2 leakage and residual susceptibility effects can confound DSC-MRI parameters. We introduce here a novel perfusion imaging acquisition and postprocessing method termed Spiral Perfusion Imaging with Consecutive Echoes (SPICE) that can be used to simultaneously acquire DCE- and DSC-MRI data, which requires only a single dose of the Gd contrast agent, does not require the collection of a precontrast T1 map for DCE-MRI processing, and eliminates the confounding contrast agent effects due to contrast extravasation. A detailed mathematical description of SPICE is provided here along with a demonstration of its utility in patients with high-grade glioma.