Table 3 Results of the qualitative evaluation by two neuroradiologists.

Rating criteria	Rater 1				Rater 2				Ƙ (95% CI)
Rating criteria	ss-EPI	rs-EPI	TGSE-BLADE	p-value	ss-EPI	rs-EPI	TGSE-BLADE	p-value	Ƙ (95% CI)
Contrast	3 ± 0	3 ± 0	3 ± 0	1^,^,**	2.8 ± 0.4	3 ± 0	3 ± 0	0.42^, * NA***	0 (0–0)
Susceptibility artifacts	2 ± 0	2.4 ± 0.5	3.2 ± 0.4	0.18* 0.01 0.06*	2 ± 0	3 ± 0	3 ± 0	0.004^,* NA***	0.57 (0.26–0.88)
Geometric distortion	1.6 ± 0.5	2.6 ± 0.5	3.2 ± 0.4	0.04* 0.009 0.12*	2.2 ± 0.4	3 ± 0	3 ± 0	0.02^, * NA***	0.42 (0.05–0.78)
Image noise	2.2 ± 0.4	2.6 ± 0.5	3 ± 0	0.27* 0.02 0.18*	2.4 ± 0.5	3 ± 0	2.8 ± 0.4	0.067* 0.27 0.42*	0.41 (-0.05-0.87)
Resolution	2.8 ± 0.4	3 ± 0	3 ± 0	0.42^, * 1***	2.6 ± 0.5	3 ± 0	2.6 ± 0.5	0.18^, 1.0	-0.1 (-0.32-0.08)
Overall image quality	2.4 ± 0.5	2.8 ± 0.4	3 ± 0	0.27* 0.067 0.42*	2.2 ± 0.4	3 ± 0	2.8 ± 0.4	0.02, 0.09* 0.42***	0.53 (0.06–0.99)

All sequences resolved even the smallest lesions with good quality, with no significant differences between raters regarding contrast or resolution. Notably, rs-EPI-DWI and TGSE-BLADE-DWI significantly outperformed ss-EPI-DWI in terms of susceptibility artifacts and geometric distortion, while overall image quality remained largely unaffected. The Ƙ values primarily reflect the raters’ consistent rating behavior, resulting in minimal variability. Consequently, percentage agreement for each quality level was calculated, despite its inability to account for potential random effects (see section Qualitative Results) *= ss-EPI-DWI vs. rs-EPI-DWI, **= ss-EPI-DWI vs. TGSE-BLADE-DWI, ***=rs-EPI-DWI vs. TGSE-BLADE-DWI, values displayed as mean ± SD, 1 = p value is not defined as all differences are zero, α ≤ 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.

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