Fast Simultaneous Non-Contrast Angiography and Intra-Plaque Hemorrhage (FSNAP) Imaging for Atherosclerotic Disease with Low-Resolution Reference Scan and Corrected Phase Sensitive Reconstruction

Huijun Chen¹, Jinnan Wang², Xihai Zhao³, Chun Yuan¹, William S. Kerwin¹

SNAP sequence has been proposed to image both the luminal stenosis and intraplaque hemorrhage in atherosclerosis patient in one scan. In SNAP, the blood signal presents only negative signal that can be used to generate non-contrast MRA, while all other tissues presents T1-weighted positive signal, providing a good hemorrhage detection tool. However, the phase-sensitive reconstruction in the SNAP sequence requires a full-resolution reference scan, which doubles the scan time. In this study, we propose a fast SNAP (fSNAP) sequence with low resolution reference scan and a corrected phase-sensitive reconstruction to speed up the acquisition without compromising the image quality.