Grzegorz
Bauman1,2, Michael Deimling3, Michael Puderbach4,
Lothar Rudi Schad2
1Medical Physics in Radiology, German
Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany; 2Computer Assisted
Clinical Medicine, University of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Germany; 3Siemens
Healthcare, Erlangen, Germany; 4Department of Radiology, German
Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany
In
lung MRI, due to the fast signal dephasing, respiratory motion and cardiac
pulsation, very fast imaging sequences using short repetition times or the
application of triggering techniques are required. The aim of this work was
to numerically simulate and optimize the Steady-State Free Precession (SSFP)
imaging scheme for dynamic studies on a 1.5 T whole-body MR-scanner. Fast
imaging with the SSFP sequence using a combination of the central k-space
sampling, parallel imaging, high bandwidth and minimal inter-echo sampling
allowed to improve the visualization of the pulmonary tissue sufficiently for
functional lung MRI.