Accelerated imaging of resected lymph nodes at high spatial resolution using a portable low-field MRI scanner

After sentinel lymph nodes are detected using SPIONs and excised, their characterization is important to detect possible metastases. In this research a low-field (0.5T) tabletop MRI scanner was tested for this purpose using 4x accelerated high resolution 3D acquisition. Both simulations and experiments on excised pig lymph nodes showed promising results, with the accelerated scans showing similar image quality with respect to fully sampled datasets. This protocol shows lymph nodes can be imaged at 0.25 mm isotropic resolution within reasonable scan times. Clinical usage should be proven by scanning true metastatic lymph nodes.