Impact of Magnetization Transfer on Relaxometry Using Transient Steady-State Free Precession Imaging

Jan Ole Blumhagen¹, Francesco Santini¹, Oliver Weber¹, Klaus Scheffler¹, Oliver Bieri¹

Several methods proposed the use of the transient response of balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) for quantification of relaxation times and spin densities. However, it has been shown that magnetization transfer (MT) affects the steady state of bSSFP and is dependent on pulse duration and repetition time. During transition to steady state also MT effects built up, thus it is likely that MT affects the estimation of relaxation parameters using transient SSFP methods. In this work, we will show exemplarily for inversion recovery bSSFP that significant deviations arise from MT.