Fat-water separation with alternating repetition time balanced SSFP

Area of Science:

• Magnetic Resonance Imaging
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Balanced steady-state free precession (SSFP) offers high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) efficiency.
• A significant limitation of balanced SSFP is the presence of bright fat signals, which can obscure anatomical details.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose and evaluate a novel multiple-acquisition fat-water separation technique for balanced SSFP.
• To achieve effective fat suppression in SSFP imaging through signal cancellation.

Main Methods:

• Utilizing alternating repetition time (ATR) balanced SSFP with appropriate phase cycling.
• Modifying the SSFP profile to generate in-phase and out-of-phase fat and water spectra.
• Exploiting signal cancellation over a broad stop-band due to signal homogeneity and profile width.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated effective stop-band suppression across a range of flip angles and tissue parameters.
• Showcased the flexibility of ATR SSFP in repetition time selection.
• Indicated that the method can be tailored for reduced residual signal or decreased sensitivity to field inhomogeneity.

Conclusions:

• The proposed ATR balanced SSFP technique is a promising method for fat-suppressed SSFP imaging.
• The technique offers tunable performance based on application-specific requirements for residual signal or field inhomogeneity sensitivity.