The first book to cover the groundbreaking development and clinical applications of Magnetic Resonance Elastography, this book is essential for all practitioners interested in this revolutionary diagnostic modality. The book is divided into three sections. The first covers the history of MRE. The second covers technique and clinical applications of MRE in the liver with respect to fibrosis, liver masses, and other diseases. Case descriptions are presented to give the reader a hands-on approach. The final section presents the techniques, sequence and preliminary results of applications in other areas of the body including muscle, brain, lung, heart, and breast.

Magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) is a medical imaging technique that combines magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with mechanical vibrations to generate maps of viscoelastic properties of biological tissue. It serves as a non-invasive tool to detect and quantify mechanical changes in tissue structure, which can be symptoms or causes of various diseases. Clinical and research applications of MRE include staging of liver fibrosis, assessment of tumor stiffness and investigation of neurodegenerative diseases. The first part of this book is dedicated to the physical and technological principles underlying MRE, with an introduction to MRI physics, viscoelasticity theory and classical waves, as well as vibration generation, image acquisition and viscoelastic parameter reconstruction. The second part of the book focuses on clinical applications of MRE to various organs. Each section starts with a discussion of the specific properties of the organ, followed by an extensive overview of clinical and preclinical studies that have been performed, tabulating reference values from published literature. The book is completed by a chapter discussing technical aspects of elastography methods based on ultrasound.

This is the first comprehensive book on the new elastographic techniques discussing the early assessment of liver fibrosis. The book covers all aspects of measuring liver stiffness starting from the methodology, the molecular basis of liver stiffness elevation up to current clinical algorithms and interpretation. Future directions and novel implications that go beyond diagnosis but are relevant for understanding of liver cirrhosis per se are also discussed in detail. Liver Elastography, is an essential companion for hepatologists and gastroenterologists that provides an overview of its basic principles and gives a detailed account of how to use elastrography in clinical practice.

Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging is a 'go-to' reference for methods and applications of quantitative magnetic resonance imaging, with specific sections on Relaxometry, Perfusion, and Diffusion. Each section will start with an explanation of the basic techniques for mapping the tissue property in question, including a description of the challenges that arise when using these basic approaches. For properties which can be measured in multiple ways, each of these basic methods will be described in separate chapters. Following the basics, a chapter in each section presents more advanced and recently proposed techniques for quantitative tissue property mapping, with a concluding chapter on clinical applications. The reader will learn: - The basic physics behind tissue property mapping - How to implement basic pulse sequences for the quantitative measurement of tissue properties - The strengths and limitations to the basic and more rapid methods for mapping the magnetic relaxation properties T1, T2, and T2* - The pros and cons for different approaches to mapping perfusion - The methods of Diffusion-weighted imaging and how this approach can be used to generate diffusion tensor - maps and more complex representations of diffusion - How flow, magneto-electric tissue property, fat fraction, exchange, elastography, and temperature mapping are performed - How fast imaging approaches including parallel imaging, compressed sensing, and Magnetic Resonance - Fingerprinting can be used to accelerate or improve tissue property mapping schemes - How tissue property mapping is used clinically in different organs - Structured to cater for MRI researchers and graduate students with a wide variety of backgrounds - Explains basic methods for quantitatively measuring tissue properties with MRI - including T1, T2, perfusion, diffusion, fat and iron fraction, elastography, flow, susceptibility - enabling the implementation of pulse sequences to perform measurements - Shows the limitations of the techniques and explains the challenges to the clinical adoption of these traditional methods, presenting the latest research in rapid quantitative imaging which has the possibility to tackle these challenges - Each section contains a chapter explaining the basics of novel ideas for quantitative mapping, such as compressed sensing and Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting-based approaches

Elastography, the science of creating noninvasive images of mechanical characteristics of tissues, has been rapidly evolving in recent years. The advantage of this technique resides in the ability to rapidly detect and quantify the changes in the stiffness of soft tissues resulting from specific pathological or physiological processes. Ultrasound elastography is nowadays applied especially on the liver and breast, but the technique has been increasingly used for other tissues including the thyroid, lymph nodes, spleen, pancreas, gastrointestinal tract, kidney, prostate, and the musculoskeletal and vascular systems. This book presents some of the applications of strain and shear-wave ultrasound elastography in hepatic, pancreatic, breast, and musculoskeletal conditions.

The comparison between methods, evaluation of portal hypertension and many other questions are still open issues in liver elastography. New elastographic applications are under evaluation and close to being used in clinical practice. Strain imaging has been incorporated into many disciplines and EFSUMB guidelines are under preparation. More research is necessary for improved evidence for clinical applications in daily practice. The Special Issue published papers on recent advances in development and application of Ultrasound Elastography.

This book provides an in-depth coverage not only of liver pathology but also of diagnosis of the numerous types of liver disease, placing specific emphasis on current treatments of liver pathology including the most up-to-date information on liver transplantation. The first part of provides an in-depth account of the liver pathology in different conditions such as Hepatits, liver ischaemia reperfusion injury, Lyme disease, cirrhotic cardiomyopathy and hepatocellular carcinoma. The second part provides a comprehensive overview of diagnostic methods. Of particular interest are chapters on the latest techniques in Patient-specific 3D printing and transient elastography (FibroScan). The final part focuses on treatment and provides a step-by step guide to the therapeutic management of liver diseases starting with pharmacological treatment and techniques including surgery and liver transplantation. This is an invaluable book for clinicians, practitioners including academics, scientists/researchers and postgraduates to provide the newest knowledge in the field of liver pathogenesis. It is written by a multidisciplinary team of experts in hepathology, gastroenterology, and surgery especially from liver transplantation.

This book provides a unique up-to-date and comprehensive overview of the most important diagnostic methods available for assessing liver cirrhosis and portal hypertension. The book covers all the significant advances made in the last 10 years in HVPG and biopsy interpretation, imaging and elastography. This is a unique and well structured book authored by senior experts in the field aimed at providing updated knowledge to the hepatology specialist and to the physicians interested in chronic liver disease. The book starts by giving an overview of the disease, outlining the clinical needs in this field; this is followed by detailed information both on the invasive gold-standard methods (HVPG measurement, liver biopsy, endoscopy), and on the standard and emerging non-invasive methods, including serum markers of fibrosis, ultrasound-elastography, magnetic resonance elastography, ultrasound, contrast-enhanced ultrasound, CT, magnetic resonance and derived methods (dynamic flow assessment). The final part of the book is devoted to diagnostic tests in non-cirrhotic causes of portal hypertension (Budd-Chiari Syndrome, Portal vein thrombosis, idiopathic portal hypertension, etc), and in pediatric portal hypertension. Written by a team of worldwide opinion leaders this book pays special attention to the most promising novel non-invasive methods in the field.

New edition explores contemporary MRI principles and practices Thoroughly revised, updated and expanded, the second edition of Magnetic Resonance Imaging: Physical Principles and Sequence Design remains the preeminent text in its field. Using consistent nomenclature and mathematical notations throughout all the chapters, this new edition carefully explains the physical principles of magnetic resonance imaging design and implementation. In addition, detailed figures and MR images enable readers to better grasp core concepts, methods, and applications. Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Second Edition begins with an introduction to fundamental principles, with coverage of magnetization, relaxation, quantum mechanics, signal detection and acquisition, Fourier imaging, image reconstruction, contrast, signal, and noise. The second part of the text explores MRI methods and applications, including fast imaging, water-fat separation, steady state gradient echo imaging, echo planar imaging, diffusion-weighted imaging, and induced magnetism. Lastly, the text discusses important hardware issues and parallel imaging. Readers familiar with the first edition will find much new material, including: New chapter dedicated to parallel imaging New sections examining off-resonance excitation principles, contrast optimization in fast steady-state incoherent imaging, and efficient lower-dimension analogues for discrete Fourier transforms in echo planar imaging applications Enhanced sections pertaining to Fourier transforms, filter effects on image resolution, and Bloch equation solutions when both rf pulse and slice select gradient fields are present Valuable improvements throughout with respect to equations, formulas, and text New and updated problems to test further the readers' grasp of core concepts Three appendices at the end of the text offer review material for basic electromagnetism and statistics as well as a list of acquisition parameters for the images in the book. Acclaimed by both students and instructors, the second edition of Magnetic Resonance Imaging offers the most comprehensive and approachable introduction to the physics and the applications of magnetic resonance imaging.

In vivo magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has evolved into a versatile and critical, if not ‘gold standard’, imaging tool with applications ranging from the physical sciences to the clinical ‘-ology’. In addition, there is a vast amount of accumulated but unpublished inside knowledge on what is needed to perform a safe, in vivo MRI. The goal of this comprehensive text, written by an outstanding group of world experts, is to present information about the effect of the MRI environment on the human body, and tools and methods to quantify such effects. By presenting such information all in one place, the expectation is that this book will help everyone interested in the Safety and Biological Effects in MRI find relevant information relatively quickly and know where we stand as a community. The information is expected to improve patient safety in the MR scanners of today, and facilitate developing faster, more powerful, yet safer MR scanners of tomorrow. This book is arranged in three sections. The first, named ‘Static and Gradient Fields’ (Chapters 1-9), presents the effects of static magnetic field and the gradients of magnetic field, in time and space, on the human body. The second section, named ‘Radiofrequency Fields’ (Chapters 10-30), presents ways to quantify radiofrequency (RF) field induced heating in patients undergoing MRI. The effect of the three fields of MRI environment (i.e. Static Magnetic Field, Time-varying Gradient Magnetic Field, and RF Field) on medical devices, that may be carried into the environment with patients, is also included. Finally, the third section, named ‘Engineering’ (chapters 31-35), presents the basic background engineering information regarding the equipment (i.e. superconducting magnets, gradient coils, and RF coils) that produce the Static Magnetic Field, Time-varying Gradient Magnetic Field, and RF Field. The book is intended for undergraduate and post-graduate students, engineers, physicists, biologists, clinicians, MR technologists, other healthcare professionals, and everyone else who might be interested in looking into the role of MRI environment on patient safety, as well as those just wishing to update their knowledge of the state of MRI safety. Those, who are learning about MRI or training in magnetic resonance in medicine, will find the book a useful compendium of the current state of the art of the field.