Fig 1.
FLL, focal liver lesion; DL, deep learning; DWI, diffusion-weighted imaging; HCC, hepatocellular carcinoma; IHCC, intrahepatic mass forming cholangiocarcinoma; FNH, focal nodular hyperplasia.
Table 1.
MRI acquisition parameters.
Table 2.
Clinical characteristics of patients.
Table 3.
Comparisons of subjective image quality between FB-DL-DWI and FB-C-DWI.
Fig 2.
Subjective image quality analysis between FB-DL-DWI and FB-C-DWI.
Data are percentages.
Fig 3.
A 2-cm TACE indicates a hepatocellular carcinoma (arrows) in segment 7 in a 50-year-old female patient showing severe motion artifacts on free-breathing, conventional DWI (FB-C-DWI) (a) and the ADC map (b).
There are no motion artifacts on free-breathing DWI using a DL reconstruction (FB-DL-DWI) (c) and on the ADC map (d). The defect in the hepatobiliary area is evident (e). ADC, apparent diffusion coefficient.
Fig 4.
A 6.5-cm hepatocellular carcinoma based on typical imaging features and elevated AFP in segment 8 in a 49-year-old male patient with hepatitis B cirrhosis showing a blurred margin on FB-C-DWI (a) and the ADC map (b), and a clear margin on FB-DL-DWI (c) and the ADC map (d).
Table 4.
Comparisons of ADC measurements between FB-DL-DWI and FB-C-DWI.
Fig 5.
Objective image quality analysis: Box plots showing ADC values measured in both hemi-livers on FB-DL-DWI and FB-C-DWI. ADC values in the left upper section on FB-C-DWI were the highest among the twelve locations. The length of the box shows the interquartile range, and lines in the box are medians. Data outside the box are outliers.
Table 5.
The number of diffusion-restricted nodules identified by each reader, and a comparison of the results between FB-DL-DWI and FB-C-DWI.
Table 6.
Lesion conspicuity and edge sharpness.
Fig 6.
A 6.9-cm TACE indicated a hepatocellular carcinoma in segment 2 in a 69-year-old male patient with alcoholic cirrhosis showing moderate motion artifacts and poor lesion conspicuity with severe blur on FB-C-DWI (a) and the ADC map (b).
Minimal motion artifacts and good lesion conspicuity with a sharp margin is evident on FB-DL-DWI (c) and the ADC map (d). Two readers interpreted the FLL with diffusion restriction in both sets, while the other two readers identified the presence of diffusion restriction on FB-DL-DWI only.