Variable field of view for spatial resolution improvement in continuously moving table magnetic resonance imaging

An approach is described in which the field of view (FOV) along the Y (right/left) phase encoding direction can be dynamically altered during a continuously moving table (CMT) coronal acquisition for extended FOV MRI. We hypothesize that with this method, regions of the anatomy exhibiting significantly different lateral widths can be imaged with a matching local FOV Y , thereby improving local lateral spatial resolution. k ‐space raw data from the variable‐FOV CMT acquisition do not allow simple Fourier reconstruction due to the presence of a mixture of phase encodes sampled at different Δ k Y intervals. In this work, we employ spline interpolation to reregister the mixed data set onto a uniformly sampled k ‐space grid. Using this interpolation scheme, we present phantom and peripheral contrast‐enhanced MR angiography results demonstrating an approximate 45% improvement in local lateral spatial resolution for continuously moving table acquisitions. Magn Reson Med 54:146–151, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.