Vladimir Juras1,
2, Sebastian Apprich1, Pavol Szomolanyi1, Claudia
Kronnerwetter1, Oliver Bieri3, Xeni Deligianni3,
Siegfried Trattnig1
1MR
Centre of Excellence, Department of Radiology, Medical University of Vienna,
Vienna, Austria; 2Department of Imaging Methods, Institute of
Measurement Science, Bratislava, Slovakia; 3Department of
Radiology, Division of Radiological Physics, University of Basel Hospital,
Basel, Switzerland
This study showed the feasibility of VTE images to calculate T2* maps with superior accuracy (mean R2 was 0.998) in relatively short scan times (~12 min 16 sec). The advantage of VTE over radial or spiral sequences is the elimination of unwanted artifacts, such as image blurring or sensitivity to incorrect gradient timing. However, it seems that one-stop shopping is still problematic, since the range of echo times did not allow the calculation of T2* maps for all tissues with the same accuracy (especially the cartilage, with a relatively high T2*). In conclusion, VTE has a great potential in the clinical environment, not only for morphological imaging, but also for quantitative assessment of rapidly relaxing tissues.