Abstract #2073

Liver MR Image Quality: Reducing Anisotropic Noise in Zero-Filled Spin-Warp Imaging

Gregory J. Wilson^1,2, Jeffrey H. Maki^2,3

¹MR Clinical Science, Philips Healthcare, Cleveland, OH, USA; ²Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA; ³Radiology, Puget Sound VAHCS, Seattle, WA, USA

Recent improvements in dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE) liver imaging have lead to more refined scrutiny of image quality. A subtle artifact in signal-to-noise (SNR)-limited liver MR is the appearance of a cross-hatch noise pattern in spin-warp images. This study explores a possible source of this noise pattern. Simulations show the combination of spin-warp imaging (acquiring the corners of k-space) and zero-filled reconstruction produce the anisotropic noise pattern in standard reconstructions. Two isotropic reconstruction filters are implemented to reduce anisotropic noise in liver MR while attempting to maintain SNR and resolution. The filters effectively reduce the appearance of anisotropic noise in liver MR.