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Abstract #2313

Reduced Field of View Diffusion-Weighted Imaging of the Thyroid Gland Using 2D RF Pulses and Optimal B1 Reconstruction

Valentina Taviani1, Sidharta Nagala2, Andrew N. Priest3, Mary A. McLean4, Martin J. Graves3

1Department of Radiology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, United States; 2Department of Otolaryngology, Addenbrookes Hospital, Cambridge, United Kingdom; 3Department of Radiology, University of Cambridge, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, United Kingdom; 4Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute, Li Ka Shing Centre, Cambridge, United Kingdom


Diffusion-weighted (DW) echo planar imaging (EPI) in the thyroid can benefit from reduced field of view (r-FOV) techniques to reduce off-resonance-induced distortion and blurring due to T2* decay. In this work, we used a 2D spatially selective RF pulse integrated into a dual spin echo DW single-shot (SS) EPI pulse sequence to perform contiguous, multi-slice, fat-suppressed, r-FOV, DW imaging of the thyroid gland at 3T. The r-FOV technique was compared with the conventional full-FOV DW-SS-EPI and the beneficial effects of an optimal B1 reconstruction strategy on the measured apparent diffusion coefficients were investigated in phantom experiments and healthy volunteers.