Di Xu1, Liheng Guo1, Aaron J. Flammang2, Wesley D. Gilson2, Elliot R. McVeigh1, Jonathan S. Lewin3, Clifford R. Weiss3, Daniel A. Herzka1
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States; 2Center for Applied Medical Imaging, Siemens Corporate Research, Baltimore, MD, United States; 3Department of Radiology and Radiologic Science, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, United States
Low-flow vascular malformations (VMs) can be treated with image-guided sclerotherapy. In MR, T2-weighted fat-saturated imaging is used for visualizing VMs during the intervention. A contrast-prepared balanced steady-state free precession (cpSSFP) sequence is proposed to overcome the limitations of conventional T2-weighted fat-sat sequences. cpSSFP shows higher CNR efficiency and superior delineation of small fast moving structures compared to the current standard HASTE. Two additional benefits leading to better visualization of lesions and needles with cpSSFP are tunability of both T2-weighting and fat-saturation. Motion insensitivity of such a technique also makes it a logical choice for free-breathing real-time guidance.