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“Keyhole” method for accelerating imaging of contrast agent uptake
Author(s) -
Van Vaals Joop J.,
Brummer Marijn E.,
Thomas Dixon W.,
Tuithof Hans H.,
Engels Hans,
Nelson Rendon C.,
Gerety Brigid M.,
Chezmar Judith L.,
Den Boer Jacques A.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
journal of magnetic resonance imaging
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.563
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1522-2586
pISSN - 1053-1807
DOI - 10.1002/jmri.1880030419
Subject(s) - keyhole , contrast (vision) , computer science , radiology , biomedical engineering , medicine , computer vision , materials science , welding , metallurgy
Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging methods with good spatial and contrast resolution are often too slow to follow the uptake of contrast agents with the desired temporal resolution. Imaging can be accelerated by skipping the acquisition of data normally taken with strong phase‐encoding gradients, restricting acquisition to weak‐gradient data only. If the usual procedure of substituting zeros for the missing data is followed, blurring results. Substituting instead reference data taken before or well after contrast agent injection reduces this problem. Volunteer and patient images obtained by using such reference data show that imaging can be usefully accelerated severalfold. Cortical and medullary regions of interest and whole kidney regions were studied, and both gradientand spin‐echo images are shown. The method is believed to be compatible with other acceleration methods such as half‐Fourier reconstruction and reading of more than one line of k space per excitation.