Grzegorz Bauman1, Monika Eichinger2, Martin Uecker3, 4
1Dept. of Medical Physics in Radiology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany; 2Dept. of Radiology, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), Heidelberg, Germany; 3Biomedizinische NMR Forschungs GmbH, Max-Planck-Institut fr biophysikalische Chemie, Gttingen, Germany; 4Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, United States
In this work we show feasibility of a radial balanced steady-state free precession sequence with the nonlinear inverse reconstruction for acceleration of the proton lung image acquisition. The combination of efficient acquisition and novel reconstruction method provides very high temporal resolution up to 20 images per second. This technique can be used for ventilation- and perfusion-weighted Fourier decomposition MRI both to improve image quality and to obtain complimentary information regarding the blood inflow time in the thoracic vessels and lung parenchyma. The method was tested in a small group of volunteers and in a cystic fibrosis patient.