Experimental study on HASTE sequences: impacts of parameters on liver imaging

This study investigates the impacts of effective TE (TEeff), echo spacing and echo train lengths (ETLs) on the imaging quality of HASTE sequences for liver imaging through a slit and a liver phantom. The HASTE sequence with a short echo spacing demonstrated higher CNR for a phantom simulating hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) than that with long echo spacing. With a long echo spacing, the HASTE sequence showed higher spatial resolution for hemangiomas and metastasis. The improvement of spatial resolution along with the increase in ETLs (imaging matrix) was more prominent for hemangioma than for HCC.