Ken-Pin Hwang1, Basak E. Dogan2,
Zachary W. Slavens3, Anthony T. Vu3, Wei Tse Yang2,
Jingfei Ma2
1MR Applied Science Laboratory, General
Electric Healthcare, Houston, TX, United States; 2Department of
Diagnostic Radiology, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, Houston,
TX, United States; 3GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI, United States
Errors
in Dixon fat-water separation may occur when acquired echo times deviate far
from those expected by the separation algorithm. Single pass, dual-echo sequences are
particularly vulnerable when pursuing high resolution at higher field
strengths, where the increased frequency shift of lipid demands shorter in-
and out-of-phase echo times. This
study examines the effect of improper echo times on a Dixon algorithm and
corrects them with the use of ramp sampling methods. Suppression is improved and artifacts are
reduced by aligning the echo times closer to those expected by the algorithm,
with no observable degradation of image quality.