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Abstract #0880

High-Resolution Skeletal Muscle Single-Shot DW-EPI with Optimized Stimulated-Echo Preparation and SENSE

Dimitrios C. Karampinos1, Suchandrima Banerjee2, Kevin F. King3, Eric T. Han2, Thomas M. Link1, Sharmila Majumdar1

1Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States; 2Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, United States; 3Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI, United States


Skeletal muscle DTI fiber reconstruction close to the aponeuroses is challenging because of partial volume effects. The spatial resolution of skeletal muscle single-shot DW-EPI is limited by the low SNR of muscle DWI and the high sensitivity of single-shot EPI to off-resonance effects. In the present work, eddy-current compensated diffusion-weighted stimulated echo preparation is used to increase SNR and is combined with SENSE to decrease the length of EPI readout. Theoretical results for the SNR efficiency of stimulated echo preparation with SENSE are derived and in vivo tensor maps of the calf muscles with an in plane resolution of 1.56x1.56 mm2 are presented.