Abstract #0626

Kim H, Pinus A, Murphy P, Constable R

The principle of the DIXON method for water-fat decomposition is preferentially used in balanced SSFP sequences (bSSFPs) by exploiting the spin-echo like signal behavior. Nonetheless, due to temporal shift of the echo which is commonly neglected, the integrity of the resultant water-only and fat-only images can be degraded. The consequence of neglecting such echo-shift in bSSFP on water-fat decomposition was examined by using the iterative least-squares estimation method in combination with trueFISP. The results demonstrate that the performance of any DIXON+bSSFP combinations can differ from pixel to pixel depending on an ROI due to the temporally variable echo formation.