Reduction of Respiration Artifacts in 3D Phase Contrast Imaging with Intermittent Fat Saturation

Marcus T. Alley¹, Albert Hsiao², Shreyas S. Vasanawala²

Time-resolved 3-dimensional phase-contrast MR imaging (4D-PC MRI) is typically subject to respiration artifacts that can limit anatomic visualization. Navigator gating and respiratory compensation can be used but result in even longer scan times. Because the lipid signal is very bright and tends to originate from close to the chest wall, we hypothesize that the elimination of this signal will reduce the severity of the resulting respiration artifacts. Here we demonstrate that the inclusion of an intermittent fat saturation pulse in a Cartesian 4D-PC acquisition can reduce the artifact severity and improve vascular visualization with no acquisition time penalty.