Determination of Optimal Fat Suppression in LOW-TIDE B-SSFP Imaging Using Eigenvalue Analysis

Neville Dali Gai¹, Lawrence Yao¹

LOW-TIDE is a preparation scheme for T2 weighting and intrinsic fat suppression with balanced SSFP imaging when partial Fourier encoding (PFE)along the phase direction is used. The PFE factor determines fat suppression (FS) and can change with scan parameters. Here, a semi-analytical method to determine optimal PFE factor for FS is described and implemented in pulse software to provide real-time update to the PFE factor based on scan parameters. The method is tested in abdominal imaging of three volunteers by changing the PFE factor around the optimal value. Measurements in kidney cortex and perirenal fat show the accuracy of the predicted optimal PFE factor.