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Abstract #2715

Noise Performance of Magnitude-Based Water-Fat Separation is Sensitive to the Echo Times

Huanzhou Yu1, Ann Shimakawa1, Diego Hernando2, Catherine D. G. Hines3, Charles A. McKenzie4, Scott B. Reeder5, Jean H. Brittain6

1Global Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, United States; 2Departments of Radiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States; 3Departments of Radiology, Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States; 4Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada; 5Departments of Radiology, Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States; 6Global Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Madison, WI, United States


Accurate fat-fraction quantification using chemical shift based water-fat separation methods requires correction of eddy-current induced phase errors that can lead to substantial errors at low fat-fraction estimates. The undesired phase modulation can be removed by magnitude-signal based water-fat separation methods. We show that noise performance of the magnitude-based reconstruction is sensitive to echo times. Some combinations of echo times may result in poor noise performance, demonstrated by both simulations and in-vivo scans. As a result, careful design of the acquisition is required to avoid poor SNR that may lead to inaccurate fat-fraction measurement when using magnitude-based methods.

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