Utility of Thin-Slice Fat-Suppressed Single-Shot T2-Weighted MRI with Deep Learning Image Reconstruction for Pancreatic Cancer

We investigated the utility of breath-hold (BH) fat-suppressed single-shot T2-weighted MRI with deep learning image reconstruction (DLIR) in 42 patients with pancreatic cancer. Three fat-suppressed T2-weighted sequences of 1) single-shot fast-spin echo (SSFSE) of 6mm thickness with 1BH, 2) SSFSE of 3mm thickness with 2BH and 3) FSE of 6mm thickness with 3BH were compared. SSFSE sequences improved signal-to-noise ratio on anatomical organs, pancreas-to-lesion contrast, and image quality in terms of motion artifacts, image sharpness, and anatomical clarity in comparison with conventional FSE. The T2-weighted SSFSE with DLIR can be a useful sequence for the evaluation of pancreatic cancer.