Does transient arterial-phase respiratory-motion-related artifact impact on diagnostic performance? An intra-patient comparison of extracellular gadolinium versus gadoxetic acid

To compare the frequency of transient arterial-phase respiratory-motion-related artifacts in liver MRI after extracellular gadolinium and gadoxetic acid injection, and to determine the impact of these artifacts on the detection of focal areas of enhancement on arterial-phase images. Intra-patient comparison of 82 cirrhotic patients who prospectively underwent liver MR with extracellular gadolinium and with gadoxetic acid within 1 month. Two readers independently assessed the quality of dynamic T1-weighted MR images (pre-contrast, arterial, and portal-venous phases), rating respiratory-motion-related artifacts on four-point scale (0 [none]–3 [non-diagnostic]). We dichotomized these assessments, which were compared using McNemar’s test, defining transient arterial-phase respiratory-motion-related artifacts as a study with a pre-contrast score