Comparison of SSFP and GRE Sequences for QMT Acquisition

Nicholas G. Dowell¹, Hannah van den Boomen², Mara Cercignani³

Quantitative MT data is often not considered in imaging protocols due to the lengthy acquisition times that are required (up to 25 minutes). This is because the normal acquisition demand the collection of up to 12 gradient echo volumes. In response, a new approach, based on SSFP acquistion can dramatically cut acquisition times to less than 10 minutes. In this work, we rigorously compare the qMT data that is produced by both methods and assess whether the new SSFP method is a drop-in replacement for the established GRE approach.