Sagittal free-breathing MR elastography of the pancreas with motion-correction at 3T

Breathing motion can be detrimental to quantitative accuracy in pancreatic MR elastography (MRE). We investigated motion-correction strategies on sagittal multi-frequency free-breathing SE-EPI MRE acquisitions to mitigate breathing-motion and increase accuracy. Breathing-states were determined through a respiratory-belt and multiple number of bins were tested. Three intensity-based registration methods (with and without non-rigid post-processing) and non-rigid registration were ranked on MRE quality measures. The best method showed improved data quality, inversion precision and repeatability compared to no correction, but resulted in apparently increased shear wave speed (SWS), which warrants further investigation.