Continuously Moving Table Whole-Body MRI Using Variable Field of View

Robert L. Janiczek^1,2, Jonathan W. Howard², Giulio Gambarota², John S. Thornton¹, Xavier Golay¹, Rexford D. Newbould²

Continuously moving table (CMT) acquisitions have been proposed whereby data are collected in a hybrid space as the patient moves through the scanner. In CMT acquisitions the table velocity and therefore scan duration is proportional to the in-plane FOV. This work investigates the use of varying the FOV as a function of patient position in order to reduce scan time. A low-resolution scout scan is used to design a k-space sampling pattern that matches the minimal FOV requirement. The use of a variable FOV CMT acquisition is shown to reduce scan time by 32% over a conventional constant FOV design.