Multi-shot Diffusion-Weighted MRI With Multiplexed Sensitivity Encoding (MUSE) in the Assessment of Active Inflammation in Crohn's Disease

Background Single-shot diffusion-weighted imaging (ssDWI) has been shown useful for detecting active bowel inflammation in Crohn's disease (CD) without MRI contrast. However, ssDWI suffers from geometric distortion and low spatial resolution. Purpose To compare conventional ssDWI with higher-resolution ssDWI (HR-ssDWI) and multi-shot DWI based on multiplexed sensitivity encoding (MUSE-DWI) for evaluating bowel inflammation in CD, using contrast-enhanced MR imaging (CE-MRI) as the reference standard. Study Type Prospective. Subjects Eighty nine patients with histological diagnosis of CD from previous endoscopy (55 male/34 female, age: 17-69 years). Field Strength/Sequences ssDWI (2.7 mm x 2.7 mm), HR-ssDWI (1.8 mm x 1.8 mm), MUSE-DWI (1.8 mm x 1.8 mm) based on echo-planar imaging, T2-weighted imaging, and CE-MRI sequences, all at 1.5 T. Assessment Five raters independently evaluated the tissue texture conspicuity, geometry accuracy, minimization of artifacts, diagnostic confidence, and overall image quality using 5-point Likert scales. The diagnostic performance (sensitivity, specificity and accuracy) of each DWI sequences was assessed on per-bowel-segment basis. Statistical Tests Inter-rater agreement for qualitative evaluation of each parameter was measured by the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC). Paired Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were performed to evaluate the statistical significance of differences in qualitative scoring between DWI sequences. A P value Tissue texture conspicuity, geometric distortions, and overall image quality were significantly better for MUSE-DWI than for ssDWI and HR-ssDWI with good agreement among five raters (ICC: 0.70-0.89). HR-ssDWI showed significantly poorer performance to ssDWI and MUSE-DWI for all qualitative scores and had the worst diagnostic performance (sensitivity of 57.0% and accuracy of 87.3%, with 36 undiagnosable cases due to severe artifacts). MUSE-DWI showed significantly higher sensitivity (97.5% vs. 86.1%) and accuracy (98.9% vs. 95.1%) than ssDWI for detecting bowel inflammation. Data Conclusion MUSE-DWI was advantageous in assessing bowel inflammation in CD, resulting in improved spatial resolution and image quality. Level of Evidence 2 Technical Efficacy Stage 2