Free-breathing radial volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination vs breath-hold cartesian volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination magnetic resonance imaging of the liver at 1.5T

Table 1 Image quality parameters and scoring criteria

Image qualityparameter	Scoring criteria
Liver edge sharpness	1 Non diagnostic; severe blurring
	2 Poor and unacceptable; moderate to severe blurring resulting in considerable loss of anatomic detail
	3 Fair and acceptable; mild blurring resulting in acceptable images with minimal loss of anatomic detail
	4 Good and diagnostic; barely perceptible blurring
	5 Very good and sharp
Artifacts	1 Non-diagnostic; severe artifacts
	2 Poor and unacceptable; moderate to severe artifacts resulting in significant loss of information
	3 Fair and acceptable; mild artifacts and very minimal loss of information
	4 Good and diagnostic; no perceptible artifacts in the area of interest and minimal artifacts at the margins
	5 Very good; no artifacts
Hepatic vessel clarity	1 Uninterpretable
	2 Severely blurred
	3 Moderately blurred
	4 Mildly blurred
	5 Sharp
Lesion conspicuity	1 Most lesions not seen
	2 Most lesions barely seen but margins and internal heterogeneity not well delineated
	3 All lesions seen with at least 50% of the lesions showing good delineation of margins and internal heterogeneity
	4 All lesions seen with at least 75% of lesions showing good delineation of the margins and internal heterogeneity
	5 All lesions seen with good delineation of margins and internal heterogeneity
Fat saturation	1 Unacceptable
	2 Poor
	3 Fair
	4 Good
	5 Very good
Overall image quality	1 Non-diagnostic
	2 Poor and unacceptable
	3 Fair and acceptable
	4 Good and diagnostic
	5 Very good

Table 2 Mean image quality scores for pre- and post-contrast radial volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination and cartesian volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination

Image qualityparameter	Pre-contrast		Post-contrast
	rVIBE	cVIBE	rVIBE	cVIBE
Liver edge sharpness	3.37	3.76	3.38	3.39
Hepatic vessel clarity	3.26	3.61	3.09	3.81
Artifacts	3.07	3.61	3.04	3.87
Lesion conspicuity	3.16	3.61	3.24	4.00
Fat saturation	3.96	4.02	4.10	4.22
Overall image quality	3.26	3.77	3.21	4.04

VIBE: Volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination; rVIBE: Radial VIBE; cVIBE: Cartesian VIBE.

Table 3 Combined image quality scores for pre- and post-contrast radial volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination and pre- and post-contrast cartesian volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination with 95%CI and P values

Image qualityparameter	rVIBE		cVIBE		P value
	Mean	95%CI	Mean	95%CI
Liver edge sharpness	3.37	3.21-3.53	3.87	3.71-4.03	< 0.001
Hepatic vessel clarity	3.18	2.95-3.40	3.71	3.49-3.93	< 0.001
Artifacts	3.06	2.85-3.27	3.74	3.53-3.95	< 0.001
Lesion conspicuity	3.20	3.01-3.39	3.81	3.62-4.00	< 0.001
Fat saturation	4.03	3.78-4.27	4.12	3.88-4.37	0.17
Overall image quality	3.24	3.02-3.45	3.91	3.69-4.12	< 0.001

VIBE: Volumetric interpolated breath-hold examination; rVIBE: Radial VIBE; cVIBE: Cartesian VIBE.