True water and fat MR imaging with use of multiple-echo acquisition

The original Dixon method for chemical shift imaging of a two-component system is extended to a multiple-echo technique. Four echoes are used to gain all the information required to remove non-chemical shift-dependent phase changes and produce true fat and water images. Applications of the method both to a phantom and to human tissue are shown. This technique results in information comparable to that obtained from the Dixon method in half the imaging time and also gives an equivalent, if not slightly improved, signal-to-noise ratio.