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- Title
Rapid dark-blood carotid vessel-wall imaging with random bipolar gradients in a radial SSFP acquisition.
- Authors
Lin, Hung-Yu; Flask, Chris A.; Dale, Brian M.; Duerk, Jeffrey L.
- Abstract
Purpose To investigate and evaluate a new rapid dark-blood vessel-wall imaging method using random bipolar gradients with a radial steady-state free precession (SSFP) acquisition in carotid applications. Materials and Methods The carotid artery bifurcations of four asymptomatic volunteers (28-37 years old, mean age = 31 years) were included in this study. Dark-blood contrast was achieved through the use of random bipolar gradients applied prior to the signal acquisition of each radial projection in a balanced SSFP acquisition. The resulting phase variation for moving spins established significant destructive interference in the low-frequency region of k-space. This phase variation resulted in a net nulling of the signal from flowing spins, while the bipolar gradients had a minimal effect on the static spins. The net effect was that the regular SSFP signal amplitude (SA) in stationary tissues was preserved while dark-blood contrast was achieved for moving spins. In this implementation, application of the random bipolar gradient pulses along all three spatial directions nulled the signal from both in-plane and through-plane flow in phantom and in vivo studies. Results In vivo imaging trials confirmed that dark-blood contrast can be achieved with the radial random bipolar SSFP method, thereby substantially reversing the vessel-to-lumen contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) of a conventional rectilinear SSFP 'bright-blood' acquisition from bright blood to dark blood with only a modest increase in TR (∼4 msec) to accommodate the additional bipolar gradients. Conclusion Overall, this sequence offers a simple and effective dark-blood contrast mechanism for high-SNR SSFP acquisitions in vessel wall imaging within a short acquisition time. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2007;25:1299-1304. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
- Publication
Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, 2007, Vol 25, Issue 6, p1299
- ISSN
1053-1807
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1002/jmri.20821