Jerry S. Cheung1, Enfeng Wang1,2,
XiaoAn Zhang2, Emiri Mandeville3, Eng H. Lo3,
A. Gregory Sorensen1, Phillip Zhe Sun1
1Athinoula A. Martinos
Center for Biomedical Imaging, Department of Radiology, MGH & Harvard
Medical School, Charlestown, MA 02129, United States; 2Department
of Radiology, 3rd Affiliated Hospital, Zhengzhou University, China, People's
Republic of; 3Neuroprotection Research Laboratory, Department of
Radiology & Neurology, MGH and Harvard Medical School, Charlestown, MA
02129, United States
Transverse relaxation time (T2) is a basic but very informative MRI parameter, widely used in imaging to examine a host of diseases including multiple sclerosis, stroke, and tumor. When the repetition time (TR) is very long, T2 can be derived by fitting T2-weighted images as a function of echo time (TE). However, short TR is often used to minimize scan time, which may introduce non-negligible errors in T2 measurement. Our study proposed a fast RF-enforced steady state (FRESS) spin echo MRI sequence, which saturates the magnetization after the spin echo and ensures a TE-independent steady state for accurate T2 mapping.