Impact of AI Acceleration on Image Quality and Diagnostic Quality in Clinical Paediatric Neuroimaging

Motivation: Accelerated imaging can significantly reduce scan duration, but the impact on image and diagnostic quality must be evaluated before confident deployment in a clinical paediatric workflow. Goal(s): Assess the impact of accelerated techniques on image and diagnostic quality of paediatric brain scans. Approach: 16 paediatric patients underwent routine and accelerated neuroimaging in a tertiary paediatric centre. Two experienced neuroradiologists and a radiology resident blindly scored each set of images for image quality across multiple brain regions and assessed overall diagnostic quality. Results: Routine and accelerated images received comparable image quality scores, but there was disagreement between radiologists over which provided better diagnostic quality. Impact: Accelerated imaging techniques can be used to significantly reduce scan times in paediatric brain imaging whilst maintaining image quality, supporting confident clinical deployment.