Comparison of fat-suppression-related sequence operations for stiffness stability in spin-echo echo-planar imaging...

Spin-echo echo-planar imaging (SE-EPI)-based magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) is susceptible to chemical shift artifacts, making sequence-related operations important for stable measurements. This phantom study evaluated the influence of fat-suppression-related sequence operations on stiffness measurement variability in SE-EPI MRE. Imaging was performed at 3-T under six conditions, with five repeated acquisitions and four slices per scan. Mean stiffness, variability, and measurable area were assessed using the average coefficient of variation (aCV), and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) was quantitatively evaluated. All conditions yielded stiffness values within the expected range. Spectral attenuated inversion recovery with strong showed the lowest aCV (0.7%), whereas water excitation showed the highest aCV (6.0%) and the smallest measurable area. Sequence-related differences were associated with variability, suggesting contributions from SNR and sequence-dependent signal characteristics affecting stiffness stability.