WeiRui Cai1, 2, WenHui Huang1, Hui Wang2, Chao Zou1, ChengZhi Zeng1, LiJuan Zhang1, HaiRong Zheng1, Yiu-Cho Chung1
1Paul C. Lauterbur Research Center for Biomedical Imaging, Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology, shenzhen, guangdong, China; 2College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan, China
MRE is useful in the diagnosis of various diseases such as liver cirrhosis. Multiple breathholds are needed for coverage when 2D gradient echoes are clinically used. EPI techniques previously proposed shorten acquisition time but reduce image SNR. Here, we propose 3D gradient echo based EPI for speed and coverage improvement and compared it with 2D gradient echo MRE sequence. Using the same scan time, we found that, the 3D technique gives slightly higher SNR than the 2D technique; it covers 6 slices instead of one; and there was no obvious difference between the stiffness maps from the two methods.