High-resolution MR imaging of the wrist and eye with short TR, short TE, and partial-echo acquisition

High-resolution spin-echo and two- and three-dimensional gradient-recalled acquisition in the steady state (GRASS) and spoiled GRASS images of the wrist and eye were obtained with a whole-body magnetic resonance imager by using trapezoidal phase-encoding gradient waveforms and by lowering receiver bandwidth to +/- 8 kHz, which results in a minimum field of view (FOV) of 4 cm and pixel resolution of 156 microns for a 256 x 256 matrix. Short echo times were achieved by using partial-echo acquisition. Poor signal-to-noise ratio resulting from smaller voxel sizes was overcome by using prototype receive-only eye and wrist coils. Images were obtained in reduced time and were superior to those obtained in studies performed with an 8-12-cm FOV and commercially available coils.