Investigations of the Origin of Phase Differences Seen with Ultrashort TE Imaging of Short T2 Meniscal Tissue

Michael Carl¹

We present UTE phase images of the meniscus that show surprisingly high contrast in spite of the very short TEs used. We investigated the source of this contrast using the Bloch equations, simulations, phantom experiments, and tissue studies. Phase evolution was shown to occur in UTE sequences primarily during the finite RF pulse and readout periods, and previously unrecognized susceptibility differences between fiber groups were observed in the meniscus.