Non-Contrast Enhanced Renal Angiography Using Multiple Inversion Recovery and Steady-State Free Precession

Hattie Zhi Chen Dong¹, Holden H. Wu¹, Dwight G. Nishimura¹

We investigate the use of multiple inversion recovery suppression with 3D balanced SSFP (MIR SSFP) to provide high contrast in renal non-contrast enhanced MR angiography. The MIR preparation segment uses several nonselective inversions to concurrently suppress a broad range of background tissues, while allowing inflowing blood to maintain its longitudinal magnetization. The length of the SSFP imaging train was adjusted to trade off between static tissue nulling level and scan time. Results are compared with balanced SSFP without any magnetization preparation, and slab-selective single inversion SSFP.