Undersampled 3D UTE FID Sequences: Cones Vs. PR

Michael Carl¹, James H. Holmes², Graeme C. McKinnon³

Imaging short T2 tissues frequently encountered in the musculoskeletal system requires specialized pulse sequences with very short echo times. There have been several k-space trajectories employed for UTE imaging, such as projection reconstruction and Cones. Here we investigate via theoretical analysis and phantom experiments the tradeoffs in terms of scan-time and image quality between undersampled PR and Cones. We found that both the very short trajectories (that require significant undersampling) and very long spiral-like trajectories are prone to different artifacts, and that intermediate Cones trajectories provide a good balance to optimize image quality.