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Pulmonary relaxometry with inversion recovery ultra‐fast steady‐state free precession at 1.5T
Author(s) -
Bauman Grzegorz,
Santini Francesco,
Pusterla Orso,
Bieri Oliver
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
magnetic resonance in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.696
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1522-2594
pISSN - 0740-3194
DOI - 10.1002/mrm.26490
Subject(s) - imaging phantom , relaxometry , reproducibility , nuclear magnetic resonance , nuclear medicine , magnetic resonance imaging , spin echo , physics , chemistry , medicine , radiology , chromatography
Purpose To present a technique for simultaneous mapping of T 1 , T 2 , and relative spin density (M 0 ) in human lung using inversion recovery ultra‐fast steady‐state free precession (IR‐ufSSFP) imaging. Methods Pulmonary relaxometry with IR‐ufSSFP is based on an interleaved time series acquisition of 2D images acquired at 1.5T. The technique was tested in a phantom and in four healthy volunteers using breath‐hold and electrocardiogram triggering. Typically, 30 transient state images were acquired in a single breath‐hold within < 10 s. From the signal time course, voxel‐wise nonlinear fitting yielded T 1 , T 2 , and M 0 parameter maps. Furthermore, off‐resonance and B1 effects were investigated in a phantom. Results In the phantom, the observed T 1 of 829 ± 2 ms and T 2 of 105 ± 4 ms were in agreement with the reference T 1 of 858 ± 1 ms and T 2 of 104 ± 1 ms using spin echo methods. In volunteers, the average T 1 of 1375 ± 102 ms and T 2 of 66 ± 26 ms of lung tissue were in good agreement with the literature and were observed to be independent of the respiratory phase. Overall, high reproducibility was shown in a volunteer, yielding coefficient of variations of 0.03 for M 0 , 0.004 for T 1 , and 0.04 for T 2 measurements. Conclusion IR‐ufSSFP allows for fast and simultaneous quantitative mapping of the human lung. Magn Reson Med 77:74–82, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine