Purpose
Magnetic Resonance Cholangiopancreatography (MRCP) is a noninvasive imaging technique to visualize the biliary tree and the pancreatic ductal system. The technique used for this examination is based on heavy T2 weighted sequences, allowing only stationary fluid such as biliary and pancreatic fluids to be imaged, which allows the visualization of the morphology of the pancreaticobiliary system.1 However, the MRCP examination is plagued by artefacts caused by fluids, air and food in the stomach and bowels, especially the proximal duodenum. These organs tend to project over...
Methods and materials
For this study ten healthy volunteers were included. The age of the volunteers was between 20-70 years to mimick population variation. All volunteers recieved two MRIs. Patients were asked to fast for 4 hours prior to the MR examination. The first MR-examination was performed without the use of any oral preparation.
For the second MRI the test subjects were asked to drink three glasses (3x150ml) of pineapple juice in 20 minutes before the examination and one glass (1x150ml) just before starting the examination.
The same...
Results
The image quality of the MRCP sequence improved in seven subjects after the oral preparation with pineapple juice (Fig. 1). These images showed less artefacts. On the DWI sequences there was improvement of the image quality seen in eight subjects (Fig. 2). The quality in the T2- weighted images (Fig. 3) remained similar with and without the oral preparation of pineapple juice.
In nine out of the ten test subjects the overall image quality of all sequences turned out to be better interpretable after the...
Conclusion
The image quality of MRCP improved after drinking pineapple juice before the MRI examination. Based on the results of this study, oral preparation with pineapple juice is now considered standard practice in MRCP examinations in our institute.
Personal information and conflict of interest
W. Gilani:
Nothing to disclose
M. Lahaye:
Nothing to disclose
C. de Graaf:
Nothing to disclose
A. te Boekhorst:
Nothing to disclose
R. G. H. Beets-Tan:
Nothing to disclose
References
1. Bearcroft and Lomas, 1997, "Magnetic Resonance Cholangiopancreatography", British Medical Journal, 41: 135-137.
2. Sandrasegaran et al., 2010, "State of Art Pancreatic MRI", American Journal of Roentgenlogy, 195(1): 42-53.