Shreyas S. Vasanawala1, Daniel Gene Church1, Yuji Iwadate2, Robert Herfkens1, Brian Andrew Hargreaves1, Anja C. Brau3
1Radiology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA; 2ASL-Hino, GE Healthcare, Hino, Japan; 3ASL-West, GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, USA
We explore navigation to decrease motion artifacts in pediatric abdominal T1-weighted imaging. An intermittent two-dimensional excitation pulse followed by a readout gradient was incorporated into our routine fat-suppressed 3D gradient echo sequence. Pediatric patients underwent the following protocol: immediate post-contrast suspended respiration acquisition, followed by free-breathing navigated and then free-breathing routine (non-navigated) acquisition. Images were graded for motion artifacts. Suspended respiration images had significantly better image quality than navigated free-breathing, whereas navigated free-breathing images had significantly better image quality than conventional free-breathing. The method may benefit patients who cannot suspend respiration.