Characterizing Cerebral Blood Volume & Permeability with a Undersampled Multiple-Echo 3D Projection Reconstruction Sequence & a Fast T1 Mapping Method

Aiming Lu¹, Keith R Thulborn¹

DCE-MRI has been applied to characterize tissue parameters such as cerebral blood volume (CBV) and permeability. Although whole brain imaging with high temporal and spatial resolution is desired, current acquisition techniques often compromise either resolution or coverage. Meanwhile, fitting the tracer models requires a fast and robust method for mapping tissue T1s prior to contrast injection. The multiple-echo 3D projection reconstruction sequence was adopted here to image the entire brain with high temporal and spatial resolution. Fast T1 mapping was achieved by linearly fitting the signals collected at different flip angles. The propose approach were demonstrated in brain tumor patients.