Abstract #0754

Larkman D, Hajnal J, Batchelor P, Counsell S

DTI is extremely sensitive to imperfect fat suppression as the immobile lipid protons signal is largely unaffected by the diffusion gradients whilst signal in the rest of the brain is suppressed. In our experience imperfect fat suppression at 3T is not uncommon. In this study we develop a practical, automated and robust method of identifying problem pixels and correcting them. We apply the method to Diffusion Weighted Imaging (DWI) and demonstrate that errors introduced by lipid contamination can be eliminated entirely from apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) maps and fractional anisotropy (FA) maps, both of which are extremely sensitive to it.