[Breath-holding three-dimensional MR imaging: evaluation of phase reordering for motion artifact suppression]

To suppress image degradation due to respiratory corruption during breath holding, a method of reordering of phase encoding was introduced in three-dimensional MR imaging. Without trade-offs in SNR, CNR, and examination time, the method provided a significant reduction of respiratory motion-induced artifacts both in phantom and in vivo experiments. More than twenty seconds of breath holding ensured acceptable image quality regardless of respiratory motion thereafter. Signal intensity change during data acquisition altered the obtained image contrast compared with that of standard sequential linear phase encoding. This technique can be readily implemented on standard two-and three-dimensional pulse sequences and will improve image quality when a patient cannot hold his/her breath during the whole imaging period.