Bruno Madore1, Renxin Chu1,
Chang-Sheng Mei1, Jing Yuan2, Tzu-Cheng Chao1,
1Department of Radiology,
Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, United
States; 2Department of Imaging & Interventional Radiology, the
Chinese University of Hong Kong
An MR thermometry method is proposed that offers advantages in terms of temperature-to-noise-ratio (TNR), tissue contrast and temperature accuracy. An interleaved-EPI sequence was modified so that both a gradient-echo and a spin-echo-like magnetization pathway would be sampled every TR. Three main advantages come from sampling both types of signal: 1) Independent temperature measurements can be combined for improved TNR, 2) images of different contrast can be compared to help identify blood vessels and/or regions of thermal damage, and 3) system imperfections, such as sub-optimal shimming, can be detected and corrected for, potentially enabling improvements in temperature accuracy.