Abstract #4151

in vivo High Resolution Renal Diffusion MRI: Diffusion-Prepared Balanced Steady State Free Precession (Diffu-Prep BSSFP)

Christopher Nguyen¹,², Zhaoyang Fan¹, Behzad Sharif¹, Rohan Dharmakumar¹, Rola Saouaf³, Hyung L. Kim⁴, Debiao Li¹,²

¹Biomedical Imaging Research Institute, Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States; ²Bioengineering, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States; ³Radiology, Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States; ⁴Urology, Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Abdominal diffusion MRI has the potential to characterize benign or malignant tumors in various organs. Magnetic susceptibility, low SNR, and low spatial resolution have been the primary challenges for the conventional DW SS EPI. We propose a novel application of Diffu-prep bSSFP to yield high resolution, high SNR, and low distortion DW images of the kidneys. ADC values acquired from 9 volunteers are consistent with prior in vivo human renal diffusion studies and DW SS EPI derived values. The multi-shot bSSFP readout has the potential to offer better image quality, higher resolutions, and higher SNR over conventional EPI-based sequences while maintaining the quantitative power of diffusion MRI.