Comparison of Water Excitation Versus Fat Saturation in Perfusion MRI - Effects on Lipid Signal, SNR and CBF

Karthik Prabhakaran¹, Ryan D. Hopson¹, Mark A. Elliott¹, Kosha Ruparel¹, Raquel E. Gur¹, Ruben C. Gur¹, John A. Detre¹

The use of frequency-selective fat saturation in EPI based perfusion imaging results in spurious measurements of cerebral blood flow (CBF) if the lipid suppression is poor and inconsistent. Frequency-selective water excitation provided superior lipid suppression and yielded higher CBF measurements when compared to frequency-selective fat-saturation in a spin-echo EPI pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling (pCASL) application at 3T.