Real-FLAIR: Real-Part Imaging for Fluid Attenuated Inversion Recovery Sequence

Tokunori Kimura¹, Mitsukazu Kamata¹

A real-part imaging for inversion recovery (real-IR) is known that clinically useful to provide higher T1W contrasts than the magnitude-based IR especially for brain. Fluid attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) is one of inversion recovery (IR) sequences. In this study, we applied real-IR technique to Fast-Spin echo (FSE) based interleaved FLAIR sequence and assessed for tissue contrasts by volunteer brain study on 1.5T and 3T. We concluded that real-FLAIR imaging has more advantageous than the magnitude-based FLAIR imaging from the points of tissue contrast enhancement, robust against TI setting, and in addition, reducing CSF inflow artifacts.