Christian Horn1, 2, Vladimir Juras1, 3, Stefan Ropele4, Andreas Berg1, 2
1MR-Center of Excellence,, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; 2Center for Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; 3Department of Radiology, Vienna General Hospital, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria; 4Department of Neurology, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Steiermark, Austria
The combination of special, radial pulse sequences designed for the detection of ultra-short echo times (UTE, TEmin = 0.07 ms) with the clinically more established technique of magnetization transfer contrast promises a new image contrast in semi-solid tissue components or implants with very short T2 times (< 1 ms). A corresponding pulse sequence was evaluated on a custom designed MR microscopy gradient insert on a 7T human scanner. BSA phantoms, with different BSA to water concentrations, and biological samples were used to demonstrate the practical applicability of the sequence ex vivo.