Feasibility of Single Breath-Hold Renal Perfusion Imaging at 7T

Xiufeng Li¹, Carl Snyder¹, Pierre-Francois Van de Moortele¹, Kamil Ugurbil¹, Gregory J. Metzger¹

Due to the intrinsically low signal noise ratio nature of ASL imaging, lengthy signal averaging and correspondingly long imaging acquisition times are usually needed in renal perfusion imaging at lower fields, which not only makes imaging sensitive to physiological motion but also imposes critical limitations on its application in patients. The increased SNR, prolonged longitudinal relaxation times, and better parallel imaging performance of ultra high field provide the potential to reduce imaging acquisition time and motion-associated artifacts. The feasibility of single breath-hold renal ASL perfusion imaging at 7T was evaluated and reported in this abstract.