Abstract #0765

Off-Resonant Reconstruction of Balanced 3D-Radial Acquisitions with Half-Echo Sampling for Unique Cell Tracking Contrast

Clemens Diwoky¹, Daniel Gungl², Andreas Reinisch², Nicole Anette Hofmann², Dirk Strunk², Rudolf Stollberger¹

¹Institute of Medical Engineering, Graz University of Technology, Graz, Austria; ²Stem Cell Research Unit, Dept. of Hematology, Univ. Clinic of Internal Medicine, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria

Within this work, SPIO labelled cells are given a unique contrast feature in order to enhance their detectability. Our approach is based on a motion-insensitive 3D radial balanced SSFP acquisition with half-echo sampling and a simple post-processing step. Adding a frequency shift to each half-echo before reconstruction, a unique ring-shaped contrast around voxels containing a strong magnetic perturber (e.q. a single labeled cell) is produced. In-vitro and in-vivo images as well as a full intra-voxel signal simulation are presented to show this unique contrast.