Michael Schr1,2, Riham H. El Khouli3, Arjan W. Simonetti4, Ronald Holthuizen4, David A. Bluemke1,3
1Russel H. Morgan Department of Radiology and Radiological Science, The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA; 2Philips Healthcare, Cleveland, OH, USA; 3Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, National Institute of Health/Clinical Center, Bethesda, MD, USA; 4Philips Healthcare, Best, Netherlands
Homogenous fat suppression is crucial in breast MRI but remains challenging at 3T due to inhomogeneities of the static magnetic field B0. In this study it is shown that localized image based 2nd order shimming based on an acquired B0-map significantly improves the quality of fat suppression in breast imaging at 3T when compared to conventional linear volume shimming, resulting in bilateral homogenous fat suppression in 88% of cases. Calculation of image based shim values for the breast was performed fully automated and without time penalty.