Analysis of Magnetization Transfer Ratio Measurements at 3T using Multiple-Acquisition Balanced SSFP

Monika Gloor¹, Klaus Scheffler¹, Oliver Bieri¹

Recently, it has been shown that fast magnetization transfer (MT) scans based on balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) with RF pulse modification achieve high SNR and high reproducibility at 1.5T. At 3T, combination of multiple, phase-cycled, bSSFP scans might be required to overcome limitations from off-resonance artifacts. In this study, different recombination methods for the generation of accurate magnetization transfer ratio (MTR) maps were analyzed. Maximum intensity projection removes off-resonance artifacts without significant MTR modification, whereas sum-of-squares and weighted-combination bSSFP yield reduced MTR values.