Abstract #0753

Addressing Phase Errors in Fat-Water Imaging using a Mixed Magnitude/Complex Fitting Method

Diego Hernando¹, Catherine D. G. Hines¹, Huanzhou Yu², Scott B. Reeder^1,3

¹Radiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA; ²Global Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, USA; ³Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA

Accurate fat quantification is important for the detection and classification of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Chemical shift based methods that rely on the complex signal are sensitive to phase errors, such as those caused by eddy currents, whereas methods that use only the signal magnitude result in poor SNR for certain acquisition parameters. In this work, we propose a mixed fitting method that provides accurate fat quantification with good SNR behavior. The performance of the proposed method is characterized theoretically, and demonstrated using phantom data and in vivo liver acquisitions.