Abstract #1877

Refocused Turbo Spin Echo for Noncontrast MRA

Samuel W. Fielden¹, John P. Mugler III^1,2, Klaus D. Hagspiel², Christopher M. Kramer^2,3, Craig H. Meyer^1,2

¹Biomedical Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA; ²Department of Radiology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA; ³Department of Medicine, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

A refocused Turbo Spin Echo (rTSE) technique for nonconcrast MRA is presented. rTSE hybridizes the increased signal provided by the 180 refocusing RF pulses of RARE and the better flow performance of the fully-refocused gradients and phase alternation of balanced SSFP. Angiograms generated by the rTSE sequence are compared to those generated by a traditional TSE sequence and exhibits higher contrast resolution and vessel sharpness (p < 0.01) with comparable SNR.