Pei-Hsin Wu1, Chiao-Yuan Lin1, Cheng-Chieh Cheng2, Hsiao-Wen Chung1, Wen-Chau Wu3, Brian A. Hargreaves4, Norbert J. Pelc4
1Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; 2Institute of Biomedical Electronics and Bioinformatics, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; 3Department of Clinical Medicine, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan; 4Department of Radiology, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, USA
Cerebellopontine (CP) angle has been an important target for the evaluation of various pathologic processes with bSSFP sequenece. However, inconsistencies of blood signal intensities are observed, hampering clear distinction of the vessels from the nerve roots. Our results suggest that flow along phase encoding direction will affect magnitude profile causing signal loss in blood vessels. Moreover, partial recovery of vessel signals could be achieved by adjusting the flip angle in bSSFP imaging according to the simulation. Consequently, suitable contrast behavior could be achieved with the appropriate flip angle adjustment based on the flow velocity in the region of interest.
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