Brady Quist1, Brian A. Hargreaves2,
Glen R. Morrell3, Garry
1Department of Electrical &
Computer Engineering, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, United States; 2Department
of Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States; 3Department
of Radiology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, United States
A
novel method for simultaneously suppressing fat and reducing bSSFP banding
artifacts in the presence of field inhomogeneity was recently presented,
called large-angle multiple-acquisition (LAMA) bSSFP. LAMA bSSFP requires the acquisition of two
phase-cycled SSFP acquisitions and a field map, although previous work has
suggested that an intelligent region-growing algorithm could replace
field-map acquisition. In this work,
we present such a region-growing algorithm, and demonstrate that LAMA bSSFP
can perform effectively without the acquisition of a field map. Results are presented in the lower leg of a
normal volunteer.