Abstract #3716

A Systematic Approach to Design Flip Angle Modulation in Pseudo-Steady-State 3D Fast Spin Echo Acquisition

Weitian Chen¹, Kristin Granlund², Donglai Huo³, Garry E. Gold²

¹Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare, Menlo Park, CA, United States; ²Radiology, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, United States; ³PSD Applications, GE Healthcare, Waukesha, WI, United States

Pseudo-steady state 3D fast spin echo acquisition has recently shown great promise in high-resolution 3D anatomical imaging. Flip angle modulation is used in these techniques to acquire data with very long echo train without excessive blurring. The flip angle modulation provides additional dimensions of freedom to achieve desired image quality. Different flip angle modulation can result in significant change of image contrast, sharpness, and SNR, which usually are tradeoffs among each other. Such flexibility imposes challenge but also opportunity to design flip angle modulation in 3DFSE to achieve desired image quality. In this work, we proposed a systematic approach to design flip angle train in 3DFSE to achieve desired image quality.