Dorothee Barbara Engel1, Catherine Judith
Moran2, Fred Kelcz3, Stephan O. Schoenberg1,
Walter Block2
1Clinical Radiology and Nuclear
Medicine, University Medical Center Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany; 2Department
of Medical Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States; 3Department
of Radiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States
While
the Dynamic Contrast Enhanced (DCE) acquisition remains the centerpiece of
breast MRI, both signal intensity and the depiction of lesion morphology in
T2-weighted images can help to distinguish malignant versus benign lesions.
With TRs on the order of seconds, T2-weighted acquisitions are generally inefficient
and most often acquired with high in-plane resolution but low through plane
resolution. A radial bSSFP acquisition termed 3DPR-SSFP has been shown to
provide improved depiction of lesion morphology in comparison to conventional
T2-weighed acquisitions. We evaluate the performance of two methods for
improving fat suppression of 3DPR-SSFP while retaining the advantage of clear
depiction of fine morphological details in the breast.
Keywords