Che A. Azlan1,2,
Trevor S. Ahearn1, Pierluigi Di Giovanni1, Scott I.K.
Semple3, Fiona J. Gilbert1, Thomas W. Redpath1
1Aberdeen Biomedical Imaging Centre,
University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, Scotland, United Kingdom; 2Department
of Biomedical Imaging, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; 3Department
of Medical Physics, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United
Kingdom
The
objective of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of Hoffmann's
method of saturation-recovery snapshot FLASH (SRSF) to minimise the effect
of radiofrequency (RF) pulse angle
inhomogeneity in breast dynamic contrast-enhanced (DCE)-MRI at 3T. We
employed computer simulation and experiment on gel phantom for this purpose.
The simulation shows that Hoffmanns SRSF produces a robust saturation in the
presence of expected RF inhomogeneity. The enhancement ratio data acquired
broadly matches the simulation.
Implementing this method may be a solution to minimise the effects of
RF pulse angle inhomogeneity in DCE-MRI of the breast at 3T.
Keywords