Kie
Tae Kwon1, Holden H. Wu1, 2, Taehoon Shin1,
Adam B. Kerr1, Dwight G. Nishimura1, Jean H. Brittain3
1Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States; 2Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, United States; 3MR Global Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Madison, WI, United States
Non-contrast-enhanced flow-independent angiography (FIA) exploits intrinsic tissue parameters such as T1, T2 and chemical shift, and thereby generates stable vessel contrast even under slow-flow conditions in the lower extremities. Magnetization-prepared 3D SSFP sequences have been of interest for FIA, but an important challenge with these sequences is artery-vein contrast. In this work, a variation of SLINKY (Sliding Interleaved ky) acquisition was incorporated into a 3D concentric cylinders SSFP FIA sequence to improve artery-vein contrast in the lower extremities by suppressing the venous signal while retaining an arterial flow-independent approach.