Hepatic MR Imaging with 3D Gradient Echo: Linear Cartesian K-Space Ordering with Partial Scan Along Both Slice and Phase Direction

Kyung Ah Kim¹, Myeong-Jin Kim¹, Gwenael Herigault², Young Eun Chung¹

Conventional 3D GRE sequences utilize either one of centric-linear, radial or linear ordering of k-space with a fat suppression technique and partial scan technique along a slice direction. Recently, we introduce a enhanced 3D-GRE sequence, which adopted a linear ordering with half scan along both slice and phase directions, and matched turbo scan factor with the number of slices. Theoretically, this sequence has potential advantages of better signal-to-noised ratio, better tissue contrast on arterial phase, better fat suppression, and improved anatomic sharpness and image homogeneity. In this study, we compared conventional and enhanced 3D T1-weighted GRE sequences in terms of image quality and conspicuity of focal liver lesions.