MR Fingerprinting¹A giant leap for precision medicine

Pushing the frontier

Magnetic Resonance imaging has traditionally been a mixture of weighted tissue properties, provided by sequential, repetitive data-acquisition with fixed parameters. Diagnostic evaluation was purely qualitative, and highly dependent on system parameters. Now, Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting¹ (MRF) makes it possible to glean quantitative information from scans that can enable decisions based on digital tissue data, and the target anatomy can be described objectively. Our developments in MRF are pushing the frontier farther, helping to improve diagnostic accuracy, and leading to more personalized treatment.

What is MRF?

Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (MRF)¹ uses absolute quantifiable data to generate a more precise understanding of a patient’s condition. Quantitative MRF offers enormous potential to enable less invasive diagnostics by identifying morphological changes that can contribute to therapy decisions and treatment evaluation. Unique signal patterns are recorded as fingerprints of tissues. These recorded fingerprints are matched against a dictionary with pre-calculated theoretical fingerprints. The best match reveals the underlying bio-parameter values used to calculate this theoretical fingerprint. The MRF Development Kit is a new tool that allows users to set their own parameters ranges for their specific research needs. The MR Robust Quantitative Tool (MR RoQT) enables simultaneous visualization of data from a variety of parameter maps.

Features & Benefits

MRF Acquisition & Dictionary for robust, reproducible results

MRF acquisition is fast and efficient due to its spiral sampling trajectory that drastically undersamples the acquired data. The target anatomy can be described objectively, and multiple tissue properties can be measured simultaneously. The resulting data, or fingerprint, increases the ability to differentiate tissues and creates a more objective understanding of a patient’s condition.

Every MRF acquisition sequence has its own database of these fingerprints, or dictionary. A pattern-matching process compares the measured fingerprints with the pre-calculated dictionary. When there is a match, the properties of this fingerprint are assigned to a map. This process is repeated sequentially until all fingerprints have a corresponding property, creating a 1:1 map.

MRF Development Kit enables tailored parameters

MRF employs an innovative pseudo-random variation of scan parameters, such as flip angle (FA), repetition time (TR), and echo-time (TE) to extract multiple quantitative tissue parameters from a single scan. With the new MRF Development Kit, users can vary these parameters to meet their specific clinical inquiries and needs. Customizable T1 and T2 ranges can be easily adapted and then translated to a user-defined MRF sequence and corresponding dictionary that can be imported and executed directly at the scanner. The MRF Development Kit is free of charge and can be downloaded at the MAGNETOM World website.

Download the MRF Development Kit

MR Robust Quantitative Tool is data, visualized

The MR Robust Quantitative Tool (MR RoQT) enables simultaneous visualization of data from MRF and conventional parameter maps, and anatomical MR data. The dependency between two parameters is visualized to enable the analysis of the relationship of quantitative MRF parameters, such as T1, T2, or other bio-parameters. The plot displays the values of one parameter over a second parameter across all voxels of the measured volume. This represents distinct areas characterizing tissue types. Using the back- mapping feature, ROIs are projected in morphological images to visualize the localization of the underlying voxels containing the parameter combinations. Conventional contrast data can be included to define the localization of brain tissue for further evaluation. MR RoQT is free of charge and can be downloaded in the Siemens Healthineers Digital Marketplace.

Download MR RoQT

Clinical Use

Clinical study: What can MRF contribute to potentially improve therapy planning? What are the relevant regions for targeted biopsy?
LOW GRADE (WHO II) ASTROCYTOMA