Tolga ukur1, Mayumi Yamada2, William R. Overall1, Phillip Yang2, Dwight G. Nishimura1
1Electrical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA; 2School of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
There has been recent interest in positive-contrast MRI methods for tracking cells labeled with super paramagnetic iron oxide (SPIO) nanoparticles. High off-resonant signal can be generated by utilizing the low-angle SSFP response to achieve fast high-resolution imaging. However, the positive contrast is compromised by the limited suppression of on-resonant and fat signals. In this work, we investigate an improved technique based on alternating-TR SSFP to achieve reliable background suppression. Sensitivity measurements are performed, and phantom and in vivo data are presented to demonstrate the reliability of the generated contrast.