Application of SENSE in clinical pediatric body MR imaging

Pediatric body magnetic resonance imaging can be challenging because of the intrinsic physiologic motions from high respiratory and heart rates. Unlike in adults, in preadolescent children, breath holding is often not an available option. In this paper, the authors describe their clinical experience using the recently available parallel imaging technique, sensitivity encoding (SENSE), to improve on the image quality of pediatric body MR examinations. The three major areas described include rapid imaging using SENSE to achieve time-resolved contrast-enhanced MRA, improvement in single-shot turbo spin echo imaging with SENSE, and decreasing respiratory motion artifact with combination of SENSE and multiple signal averages in various pulse sequences. Some practical suggestions of using SENSE in clinical pediatric body MR examinations are highlighted. The addition of SENSE has allowed for improved image quality and more efficient overall MR examinations for pediatric body imaging.