Abstract #4565

A 3D Eddy Current Model for the Prediction of Geometric Image Distortions in Stejkal-Tanner Diffusion Weighted EPI

Kieran R. O'Brien^1,2, Nils Kickler³, Francois Lazeyras¹, Rolf Gruetter³, Thorsten Feiweier⁴, Gunnar Krueger⁵

¹Department of Radiology, Universit de Genve, Geneva, Switzerland; ²Laboratory for Functional & Metabolic Imaging, Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne, Lausanne,, Switzerland; ³Laboratory for Functional & Metabolic Imaging, Ecole Polytechnique Fdrale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland; ⁴Siemens Healthcare Sector, Erlangen, Germany; ⁵Advanced Clinical Imaging Technology, Siemens Suisse SA, Lausanne, Switzerland

The current correction methods available to remove geometric image distortions seen in eddy current (EC) sensitive diffusion weighting (DW) echo planar imaging involve time intensive EC field measurements or have limited reliability at high b-values (>1000s/mm2). We propose a 3D-EC field measurement tune-up scan to model and to predict the 0th/1st order ECs originating from the applied DW-gradients. After 0th and 1st order distortion correction, EC induced spatial misalignments are visibly reduced and the image quality becomes comparable to the currently clinically preferred twice refocused spin echo scheme.