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

• In a patient-by-patient analysis, the quality of arterial-phase liver MR images was significantly worse with gadoxetic acid than with extracellular gadolinium. • The frequency of transient arterial-phase artifacts was significantly higher after gadoxetic acid injection than after extracellular gadolinium injection. • Differences in the detection of areas of arterial-phase enhancement between MRI studies done with extracellular gadolinium and those done with gadoxetic acid might not be related only to image quality.