Tolga ukur1, Ann Shimakawa2, Huanzhou Yu2, Brian A. Hargreaves1, Bob S. Hu3, Jean H. Brittain2, Dwight G. Nishimura1
1Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA; 2Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, USA; 3Palo Alto Medical Foundation, USA
High-resolution non-contrast-enhanced peripheral angiograms can be produced with magnetization-prepared SSFP sequences. However, reliable fat suppression is crucial for this application due to the inherently bright fat signal. To reduce the sensitivity to field inhomogeneity over large FOVs (e.g., imaging both limbs), we have investigated two fat/water separation techniques compatible with dual-acquisition complex-sum SSFP. The simple phase-sensitive reconstruction achieves a shorter TR and scan time, but suffers from partial volume artifacts that reduce the visibility of small vessels. On the other hand, IDEAL enhances the small vessel depiction and yields better venous suppression due to its longer TR.
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