Comparison of compressed sensing accelerated MR elastography to standard breath-hold gradient recalled echo MRE for estimating liver stiffness

The standard MRE(sMRE) uses four breath-hold, each of 14–22 s, to stage liver fibrosis. The long breath-hold time challenges most children and adult patients with limited breath-hold capability. The compressed sensing (CS) technique was used to accelerate the MRE (csMRE) acquisition to shorten the breath-hold duration (~10s). The preliminary results showed that the LS estimated from csMRE strongly correlated to sMRE and showed strong agreement in the normal to mild liver fibrosis stage. However, it underestimates the liver stiffness in the elevated liver stiffness. The confident available area for LS estimation in csMRE increased 38% compared to sMRE.