Diffusion-weighted MRI of rectal cancers: Utility of reduced FOV single-shot EPI with tilted 2D RF excitation pulses

This study evaluated the image quality of reduced FOV DWI using 2D spatially-selective RF pulses with tilted excitation plane (tilted r-DWI) for rectal cancer compared with full-FOV DWI (f-DWI) using readout segmented echo-planar imaging (RS-EPI). Two radiologists evaluated the MR images, and SNR, CNR, and ADC values of the rectal lesions were quantitatively evaluated. All image quality scores and CNR were significantly higher in tilted r-DWI than in f-DWI with RS-EPI. SNR and ADC values showed no significant deference between them. Tilted r-DWI provides better image quality with less artifacts and higher rectal lesion conspicuity than f-DWI with RS-EPI.