Ruiyang Zhao

All Publications

• Multicenter, multivendor validation of liver quantitative susceptibility mapping in patients with iron overload at 1.5T and 3T. Magnetic resonance in medicine Buelo, C. J., Velikina, J., Mao, L., Zhao, R., Yuan, Q., Ghasabeh, M. A., Ruschke, S., Karampinos, D. C., Harris, D. T., Mattison, R. J., Jeng, M. R., Pedrosa, I., Kamel, I. R., Vasanawala, S., Yokoo, T., Reeder, S. B., Hernando, D. 2024

  Abstract

  PURPOSE: To evaluate the repeatability and reproducibility of QSM of the liver via single breath-hold chemical shift-encoded MRI at both 1.5T and 3T in a multicenter, multivendor study in subjects with iron overload.METHODS: This prospective study included four academic medical centers with three different MRI vendors at 1.5T and 3T. Subjects with known or suspected liver iron overload underwent multi-echo spoiled gradient-recalled-echo scans at each field strength. A subset received repeatability testing at either 1.5T or 3T. Susceptibility and R 2 * $$ {\mathrm{R}}_2^{\ast } $$ maps were reconstructed from the multi-echo images and analyzed at a single center. QSM-measured susceptibility was compared with R 2 * $$ {\mathrm{R}}_2^{\ast } $$ and a commercial R2-based liver iron concentration method across centers and field strengths using linear regression and F-tests on the intercept and slope. Field-strength reproducibility and test/retest repeatability were evaluated using Bland-Altman analysis.RESULTS: A total of 155/80 data sets (test/retest) were available at 1.5T, and 159/70 data sets (test/retest) were available at 3T. Calibrations across sites were reproducible, with some variability (e.g., susceptibility slope with liver iron concentration ranged from 0.102 to 0.123g/[mg · $$ \cdotp $$ ppm] across centers at 1.5T). Field strength reproducibility was good (concordance correlation coefficient=0.862), and test/retest repeatability was excellent (intraclass correlation coefficient=0.951).CONCLUSION: QSM as an imaging biomarker of liver iron overload is feasible and repeatable across centers and MR vendors. It may be complementary with R 2 * $$ {\mathrm{R}}_2^{\ast } $$ as they are obtained from the same acquisition. Although good reproducibility was observed, liver QSM may benefit from standardization of acquisition parameters. Overall, QSM is a promising method for liver iron quantification.

  View details for DOI 10.1002/mrm.30251

  View details for PubMedID 39238238

• Practical Application of Multivendor MRI-Based R2* Mapping for Liver Iron Quantification at 1.5 T and 3.0 T. Journal of magnetic resonance imaging : JMRI Simchick, G., Zhao, R., Yuan, Q., Ghasabeh, M. A., Ruschke, S., Karampinos, D. C., Harris, D. T., do Vale Souza, R., Mattison, R. J., Jeng, M. R., Pedrosa, I., Kamel, I. R., Vasanawala, S., Yokoo, T., Reeder, S. B., Hernando, D. 2024

  Abstract

  Recent multicenter, multivendor MRI-based R2* vs. liver iron concentration (LIC) calibrations (i.e., MCMV calibrations) may facilitate broad clinical dissemination of R2*-based LIC quantification. However, these calibrations are based on a centralized offline R2* reconstruction, and their applicability with vendor-provided R2* maps is unclear.To determine R2* ranges of agreement between the centralized and three MRI vendors' R2* reconstructions.Prospective.Two hundred and seven subjects (mean age 37.6 ± 19.6 years; 117 male) with known or suspected iron overload from four academic medical centers.Standardized multiecho spoiled gradient echo sequence at 1.5 T and 3.0 T for R2* mapping and a multiple spin-echo sequence at 1.5 T for LIC quantification. MRI vendors: GE Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, and Siemens Healthineers.R2* maps were generated using both the centralized and vendor reconstructions, and ranges of agreement were determined. R2*-LIC linear calibrations were determined for each site, field strength, and reconstruction and compared with the MCMV calibrations.Bland-Altman analysis to determine ranges of agreement. Linear regression, analysis of covariance F tests, and Tukey's multiple comparison testing to assess reproducibility of calibrations across sites and vendors. A P value <0.05 was considered significant.The upper limits of R2* ranges of agreement were approximately 500, 375, and 330 s-1 for GE, Philips, and Siemens reconstructions, respectively, at 1.5 T and approximately 700 and 800 s-1 for GE and Philips, respectively, at 3.0 T. Within the R2* ranges of agreement, vendor R2*-LIC calibrations demonstrated high reproducibility (no significant differences between slopes or intercepts; P ≥ 0.06) and agreed with the MCMV calibrations (overlapping 95% confidence intervals).Based on the determined upper limits, R2* measurements obtained from vendor-provided R2* maps may be reliably and practically used to quantify LIC less than approximately 8-13 mg/g using the MCMV calibrations and similar acquisition parameters as this study.1 TECHNICAL EFFICACY: Stage 3.

  View details for DOI 10.1002/jmri.29401

  View details for PubMedID 38662618

• Validation of liver quantitative susceptibility mapping across imaging parameters at 1.5 T and 3.0 T using SQUID susceptometry as reference. Magnetic resonance in medicine Zhao, R., Velikina, J., Reeder, S. B., Vasanawala, S., Jeng, M., Hernando, D. 2022

  Abstract

  To validate QSM-based biomagnetic liver susceptometry (BLS) to measure liver iron overload at 1.5 T and 3.0 T using superconducting quantum interference devices (SQUID)-based BLS as reference.Subjects with known or suspected iron overload were recruited for QSM-BLS at 1.5 T and 3.0 T using eight different protocols. SQUID-BLS was also obtained in each subject to provide susceptibility reference. A recent QSM method based on data-adaptive regularization was used to obtain susceptibility and R 2 * $$ {\mathrm{R}}_2^{\ast } $$ maps. Measurements of susceptibility and R 2 * $$ {\mathrm{R}}_2^{\ast } $$ were obtained in the right liver lobe. Linear mixed-effects analysis was used to estimate the contribution of specific acquisition parameters to QSM-BLS. Linear regression and Bland-Altman analyses were used to assess the relationship between QSM-BLS and SQUID-BLS/ R 2 * $$ {\mathrm{R}}_2^{\ast } $$ .Susceptibility maps showed high subjective quality for each acquisition protocol across different iron levels. High linear correlation was observed between QSM-BLS and SQUID-BLS at 1.5 T (r2 range, [0.82, 0.84]) and 3.0 T (r2 range, [0.77, 0.85]) across different acquisition protocols. QSM-BLS and R 2 * $$ {\mathrm{R}}_2^{\ast } $$ were highly correlated at both field strengths (r2 range at 1.5 T, [0.94, 0.99]; 3.0 T, [0.93, 0.99]). High correlation (r2  = 0.99) between 1.5 T and 3.0 T QSM-BLS, with narrow reproducibility coefficients (range, [0.13, 0.21] ppm) were observed for each protocol.This work evaluated the feasibility and performance of liver QSM-BLS across iron levels and acquisition protocols at 1.5 T and 3.0 T. High correlation and reproducibility were observed between QSM-BLS and SQUID-BLS across protocols and field strengths. In summary, QSM-BLS may enable reliable and reproducible quantification of liver iron concentration.

  View details for DOI 10.1002/mrm.29529

  View details for PubMedID 36408802

• Multicenter Reproducibility of Liver Iron Quantification with 1.5-T and 3.0-T MRI. Radiology Hernando, D., Zhao, R., Yuan, Q., Aliyari Ghasabeh, M., Ruschke, S., Miao, X., Karampinos, D. C., Mao, L., Harris, D. T., Mattison, R. J., Jeng, M. R., Pedrosa, I., Kamel, I. R., Vasanawala, S., Yokoo, T., Reeder, S. B. 2022: 213256

  Abstract

  Background MRI is a standard of care tool to measure liver iron concentration (LIC). Compared with regulatory-approved R2 MRI, R2* MRI has superior speed and is available in most MRI scanners; however, the cross-vendor reproducibility of R2*-based LIC estimation remains unknown. Purpose To evaluate the reproducibility of LIC via single-breath-hold R2* MRI at both 1.5 T and 3.0 T with use of a multicenter, multivendor study. Materials and Methods Four academic medical centers using MRI scanners from three different vendors (three 1.5-T scanners, one 2.89-T scanner, and two 3.0-T scanners) participated in this prospective cross-sectional study. Participants with known or suspected liver iron overload were recruited to undergo multiecho gradient-echo MRI for R2* mapping at 1.5 T and 3.0 T (2.89 T or 3.0 T) on the same day. R2* maps were reconstructed from the multiecho images and analyzed at a single center. Reference LIC measurements were obtained with a commercial R2 MRI method performed using standardized 1.5-T spin-echo imaging. R2*-versus-LIC calibrations were generated across centers and field strengths using linear regression and compared using F tests. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to determine the diagnostic performance of R2* MRI in the detection of clinically relevant LIC thresholds. Results A total of 207 participants (mean age, 38 years ± 20 [SD]; 117 male participants) were evaluated between March 2015 and September 2019. A linear relationship was confirmed between R2* and LIC. All calibrations within the same field strength were highly reproducible, showing no evidence of statistically significant center-specific differences (P > .43 across all comparisons). Calibrations for 1.5 T and 3.0 T were generated, as follows: for 1.5 T, LIC (in milligrams per gram [dry weight]) = -0.16 + 2.603 * 10-2 R2* (in seconds-1); for 2.89 T, LIC (in milligrams per gram) = -0.03 + 1.400 * 10-2 R2* (in seconds-1); for 3.0 T, LIC (in milligrams per gram) = -0.03 + 1.349 * 10-2 R2* (in seconds-1). Liver R2* had high diagnostic performance in the detection of clinically relevant LIC thresholds (area under the ROC curve, >0.98). Conclusion R2* MRI enabled accurate and reproducible quantification of liver iron overload over clinically relevant ranges of liver iron concentration (LIC). The data generated in this study provide the necessary calibrations for broad clinical dissemination of R2*-based LIC quantification. ClinicalTrials.gov registration no.: NCT02025543 © RSNA, 2022 Online supplemental material is available for this article.

  View details for DOI 10.1148/radiol.213256

  View details for PubMedID 36194113

• fastMRI+, Clinical pathology annotations for knee and brain fully sampled magnetic resonance imaging data. Scientific data Zhao, R., Yaman, B., Zhang, Y., Stewart, R., Dixon, A., Knoll, F., Huang, Z., Lui, Y. W., Hansen, M. S., Lungren, M. P. 2022; 9 (1): 152

  Abstract

  Improving speed and image quality of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) using deep learning reconstruction is an active area of research. The fastMRI dataset contains large volumes of raw MRI data, which has enabled significant advances in this field. While the impact of the fastMRI dataset is unquestioned, the dataset currently lacks clinical expert pathology annotations, critical to addressing clinically relevant reconstruction frameworks and exploring important questions regarding rendering of specific pathology using such novel approaches. This work introduces fastMRI+, which consists of 16154 subspecialist expert bounding box annotations and 13 study-level labels for 22 different pathology categories on the fastMRI knee dataset, and 7570 subspecialist expert bounding box annotations and 643 study-level labels for 30 different pathology categories for the fastMRI brain dataset. The fastMRI+dataset is open access and aims to support further research and advancement of medical imaging in MRI reconstruction and beyond.

  View details for DOI 10.1038/s41597-022-01255-z

  View details for PubMedID 35383186

• Multi-Center, Multi-Vendor Reproducibility and Calibration of MRI-Based R2*for Liver Iron Quantification Hernando, D., Zhao, R., Yuan, Q., Ghasabeh, M., Ruschke, S., Miao, X., Karampinos, D. C., Mao, L., Harris, D. T., Kamel, R. R., Vasanawala, S., Yokoo, T., Reeder, S. B. AMER SOC HEMATOLOGY. 2021

  View details for DOI 10.1182/blood-2021-148803

  View details for Web of Science ID 000736413900011