MRI artifact

An MRI artifact is a visual artifact (an anomaly seen during visual representation) in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). It is a feature appearing in an image that is not present in the original object. Many different artifacts can occur during MRI, some affecting the diagnostic quality, while others may be confused with pathology. Artifacts can be classified as patient-related, signal processing-dependent and hardware-related.

Patient-related MR artifacts

Motion artifacts

A motion artifact is one of the most common artifacts in MR imaging. Motion can cause either ghost images or diffuse image noise in the phase-encoding direction. The reason for mainly affecting data sampling in the phase-encoding direction is the significant difference in the time of acquisition in the frequency- and phase-encoding directions. Frequency-encoding sampling in all the rows of the matrix (128, 256 or 512) takes place during a single echo (milliseconds). Phase-encoded sampling takes several seconds, or even minutes, owing to the collection of all the k-space lines to enable Fourier analysis. Major physiological movements are of millisecond to seconds duration and thus too slow to affect frequency-encoded sampling, but they have a pronounced effect in the phase-encoding direction. Periodic movements such as cardiac movement and blood vessel or CSF pulsation cause ghost images, while non-periodic movement causes diffuse image noise (Fig. 1). Ghost image intensity increases with amplitude of movement and the signal intensity from the moving tissue. Several methods can be used to reduce motion artifacts, including patient immobilisation, cardiac and respiratory gating, signal suppression of the tissue causing the artifact, choosing the shorter dimension of the matrix as the phase-encoding direction, view-ordering or phase-reordering methods and swapping phase and frequency-encoding directions to move the artifact out of the field of interest.

Flow Flow can manifest as either an altered intravascular signal (flow enhancement or flow-related signal loss), or as flow-related artifacts (ghost images or spatial misregistration). Flow enhancement, also known as inflow effect, is caused by fully magnetised protons entering the imaged slice while the stationary protons have not fully regained their magnetization. The fully magnetized protons yield a high signal in comparison with the rest of the surroundings. High velocity flow causes the protons entering the image to be removed from it by the time the 180-degree pulse is administered. The effect is that these protons do not contribute to the echo and are registered as a signal void or flow-related signal loss (Fig. 2). Spatial misregistration manifests as displacement of an intravascular signal owing to position encoding of a voxel in the phase direction preceding frequency encoding by time TE/2.The intensity of the artifact is dependent on the signal intensity from the vessel, and is less apparent with increased TE.

Metal artifacts Metal artifacts occur at interfaces of tissues with different magnetic susceptibilities, which cause local magnetic fields to distort the external magnetic field. This distortion changes the precession frequency in the tissue leading to spatial mismapping of information. The degree of distortion depends on the type of metal (stainless steel having a greater distorting effect than titanium alloy), the type of interface (most striking effect at soft tissue-metal interfaces), pulse sequence and imaging parameters. Metal artifacts are caused by external ferromagnetics such as cobalt containing make-up, internal ferromagnetics such as surgical clips, spinal hardware and other orthopaedic devices, and in some cases, metallic objects swallowed by people with pica. Manifestation of these artifacts is variable, including total signal loss, peripheral high signal and image distortion (Figs 3 and 4). Reduction of these artifacts can be attempted by orientating the long axis of an implant or device parallel to the long axis of the external magnetic field, possible with mobile extremity imaging and an open magnet. Further methods used are choosing the appropriate frequency encoding direction, since metal artifacts are most pronounced in this direction, using smaller voxel sizes, fast imaging sequences, increased readout bandwidth and avoiding gradient-echo imaging when metal is present. A technique called MARS (metal artifact reduction sequence) applies an additional gradient, along the slice select gradient at the time the frequency encoding gradient is applied.

Signal processing dependent artifacts The ways in which the data are sampled, processed and mapped out on the image matrix manifest these artifacts.

Chemical shift artifact Chemical shift artifact occurs at the fat/water interface in the frequency encoding direction (Fig. 5). These artifacts arise due to the difference in resonance of protons as a result of their micromagnetic environment. The protons of fat resonate at a slightly lower frequency than those of water. High field strength magnets are particularly susceptible to this artifact. Determination of the artifact can be made by swapping the phase- and frequency-encoding gradients and examining the resultant shift of fat tissue.

Partial volume

Partial volume artifacts arise from the size of the voxel over which the signal is averaged. Objects smaller than the voxel dimensions lose their identity, and loss of detail and spatial resolution occurs. Reduction of these artifacts is accomplished by using a smaller pixel size and/or a smaller slice thickness.

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