Optimal scan parameters for DWI with reverse encoding distortion correction: a phantom study and clinical feasibility study in the pancreas.

Motivation: Challenges in pancreatic DWI include image distortion due to air in the gastrointestinal tract. Goal(s): Our goal was to find optimal imaging parameters for the application of reverse encoding distortion correction (RDC) and to evaluate its value in pancreatic DWI. Approach: Phantom and clinical studies were conducted using a 3.0T MRI scanner. Results: In the phantom study, RDC effectively reduced DWI distortion independent of parallel imaging factor and bandwidth. In the clinical study, RDC with a lower parallel imaging factor and bandwidth enabled the acquisition of high-SNR, high-resolution pancreatic DWI while minimizing image distortion. Impact: To maximize the value of the RDC technique in DWI, the parallel imaging factor and bandwidth should be reduced because RDC efficiently reduces image distortion and the lower parallel imaging factor and bandwidth increase SNR and enable high-resolution DWI.