Abstract #0207
High-Resolution Cartilage Imaging with Wideband SSFP
Gold G, Lee H, Nayak K
Stanford University
SSFP cartilage imaging benefits from high SNR efficiency and excellent contrast between cartilage and synovial fluid, but has limited TR because of the off-resonance banding artifact. It's difficult to achieve high spatial resolution given the restricted readout time. In this work we applied wideband SSFP to knee imaging to extend the readout duration while maintaing a sufficient passband bandwidth. Patellar cartilage images of high in-plane resolution (0.15mm x 0.3mm) and T2/T1 contrast were obtained with reduced off-resonance artifacts compared to conventional SSFP.