Accelerated phase-cycled SSFP imaging with compressed sensing.

Area of Science:

• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
• Medical Physics

Background:

• Balanced steady-state free precession (SSFP) MRI is susceptible to banding artifacts due to B0 field inhomogeneity.
• Current solutions involve acquiring multiple phase-cycled images, which increases scan time and limits clinical application.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an accelerated SSFP imaging technique that maintains image quality despite B0 field inhomogeneities.
• To reduce scan time for SSFP imaging without compromising artifact suppression.

Main Methods:

• Proposed an accelerated acquisition strategy for SSFP imaging.
• Utilized variable-density random k-space sampling and disjoint sampling patterns to minimize aliasing and noise.
• Employed a sparsity-enforcing method for image reconstruction.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated robust SSFP imaging in the presence of field inhomogeneities.
• Achieved artifact suppression without prolonging overall scan times.
• Validated the technique on phantom, brain, and knee in vivo images.

Conclusions:

• The proposed accelerated SSFP technique effectively suppresses banding artifacts.
• This method enables robust SSFP imaging within clinically relevant scan times.
• Offers a promising solution for improving SSFP imaging utility in challenging magnetic field environments.