Modified reduced FOV diffusion-weighted MRI using tilted 2D RF excitation pulses in patients with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

This study evaluated the image quality of modified reduced field-of-view (FOV) DWI using 2D spatially-selective RF pulses with tilted excitation plane (tilted r-DWI) for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinomas (PDACs) compared with conventional full-FOV DWI (f-DWI). Two radiologists evaluated the MR image quality, and SNR, CNR, and ADC values of the pancreatic lesions were quantitatively assessed. Image quality scores and CNR of tilted r-DWI were significantly higher than that of f-DWI. The ADC values of PDACs showed no significant deference between them. Tilted r-DWI provides better image quality with less artifacts and higher pancreatic lesion conspicuity than f-DWI.