Oliver Bieri1,
Carl Ganter2, Klaus Scheffler1
1Radiological Physics, University of
Basel Hospital, Basel, Switzerland; 2Department of Diagnostic
Radiology, Technical University Munich, Munich, Germany
Several
models have been developed for the description of diffusion in steady-state
free precession (SSFP) sequences. For clinical practice, high SNR and short
acquisition times are desirable with DW-SSFP. In this work, a new approach
for quantitative diffusion imaging is proposed using a fast low-angle
short-TR (FLASH) diffusion-weighted (DW) SSFP sequence. The accuracy of
diffusion models is assed in-vitro and the feasibility of high resolution
quantitative diffusion mapping is demonstrated in-vivo for human articular
cartilage.