Susceptibility Weighted Imaging (SWI)

描述（申请人提供）：敏感性加权成像（SWI）已成为诊断脑部疾病的重要新工具。它被用来研究大脑的血管系统，检测大脑中的铁，并可视化微出血。该方法依赖于导致组织间相位差引入和信号丢失的组织间易感性变化。它已被证明是更好地诊断创伤、中风和肿瘤以及检测脑功能变化的有力手段。我们希望继续发展SWI: a)通过减少阶段处理伪影使其更具临床可行性；B)通过建立人体组织的易感性图来评估易感性本身；c)通过同时采集MRA和SWI数据，研究其作为一种新的MR血管造影方法的作用；d)独立于任何并行成像增益因子，将全脑覆盖的采集时间加快到5分钟以下。这些问题的解决不仅是对当前SWI使用的一种进步，而且为磁共振成像方法引入了重要的新研究方向。为了实现这些目标，我们将进行模拟来模拟预期的人类条件，进行模拟实验来建立技术的准确性，并进行人体实验来验证体内方法。拟议的研究将进行四年，早期用于技术开发，后期用于志愿者的潜在临床应用。这些研究将包括：对大脑组织的易感性进行成像，测量主要血管的氧饱和度，收集动脉和静脉的全脑血管信息。当涉及到测试建议的血管造影因素时，这些方法也将在使用和不使用造影剂时进行评估。这项研究计划的成功将为更好地检测神经和血管疾病提供一种手段。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Susceptibility weighted imaging (SWI) has become an important new tool for diagnosing disease in the brain. It is used to study the vasculature of the brain, to detect iron in the brain and to visualize micro-hemorrhages. The method relies on changes in susceptibility between tissues that lead to the introduction of phase differences between tissues and to signal loss. It has been shown to be a powerful means to better diagnose trauma, stroke and tumors and detect changes in brain function. We wish to continue the development of SWI to: a) make it more clinically viable by reducing phase processing artifacts; b) evaluate susceptibility itself by creating a susceptibility map of human tissue; c) study its role as a new MR angiographic method by simultaneously collecting MRA and SWI data; and d) speed up its acquisition time to less than 5 minutes for whole brain coverage, independent of any parallel imaging gain factor. The solution of these problems offers not only an advance over the current use of SWI but also the introduction of important new research directions in magnetic resonance imaging methods. To accomplish these goals, we will perform simulations to mimic expected human conditions, perform phantom experiments to establish the accuracy of the techniques, and perform human experiments to validate the methodology in vivo. The proposed research will take place over four years with the early parts devoted to technical development and the latter parts to potential clinical applications on volunteers. These studies will include: imaging the susceptibility of tissues in the brain, measuring oxygen saturation in major vessels and collecting whole brain vascular information for the arteries and veins. These methods will also be evaluated with and without contrast agents when it comes to testing the angiographic elements of the proposal. The success of this research program will offer a means to better detect neurological and vascular disease. PUBLIC HEALTH REVELANCE: Susceptibility Weighted Imaging (SWI) is a new high resolution magnetic resonance imaging method that makes it possible to detect microhemorrhages and iron content in the brain. This exquisite sensitivity to iron in the form of blood products (such as hemosiderin) and ferritin makes SWI the method of choice for imaging neurological diseases such as trauma, stroke, multiple sclerosis, and tumors. Recently, SWI has also become available to the clinical world for every day use and therefore its continued technical development is of paramount importance for the proper diagnosis of these diseases in patients.