Data acquisition acceleration in magnetic resonance angiography applications using magnetization-prepared simultaneous multi-slice acquisition

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11375914-B2
Application number	US-201916687733-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 19, 2019
Priority date	Oct 24, 2016
Publication date	Jul 5, 2022
Grant date	Jul 5, 2022

Abstract

A method for producing an image representative of the vasculature of a subject using a MRI system includes the acquisition of a signal indicative of a subject' cardiac phase. During each heartbeat of the subject, image slices of a volume covering a region of interest (ROI) within the subject are acquired by applying a volume-selective venous suppression pulse to suppress (a) venous signal for an upper slice in the ROI; (b) venous signal for slices that are upstream for venous flow in the ROI; and (c) background signal from the upstream slices. Next, a slice-selective background suppression pulse is applied to suppress background signal of the upper slice. Following a quiescent time interval, a spectrally selective fat suppression pulse is applied to the entire volume to attenuate signal from background fat signal. Then, a simultaneous multi-slice acquisition of the upper slice and the upstream slices is performed.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method for using magnetic resonance angiography to produce an image representative of the vasculature of a subject with a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system, the method comprising:
acquiring a signal indicative of a cardiac phase of the subject;
during each heartbeat of the subject, acquiring a plurality of image slices of a volume covering a region of interest within the subject using an acquisition process comprising:
for each of the plurality of image slices, applying (a) a volume-selective venous suppression pulse to suppress venous signal downstream from venous flow into the image slice and (b) a slice-selective background suppression pulse to suppress background signal of the image slice;
following a quiescent time interval, applying a spectrally selective fat suppression pulse to attenuate signal from background fat signal in the entire volume; and
performing a simultaneous multi-slice acquisition of the plurality of image slices.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein each acquisition process is performed following a user-selected time delay after the R-wave of each heartbeat.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the volume-selective venous suppression pulse comprises a tracking saturation pulse applied downstream from venous flow into the image slice.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the slice-selective background suppression pulse applies a 90 degree flip angle to the image slice.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the slice-selective background suppression pulse applies a 180 degree flip angle to the image slice.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the spectrally selective fat suppression pulse is a 90 degree RF pulse which rotates magnetizations of the plurality of image slices into the x-y plane of the subject.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the spectrally selective fat suppression pulse is a 180 degree RF pulse which completely inverts longitudinal magnetization of fat in the plurality of image slices and wherein the method further comprises:
waiting a predetermined inversion time prior to performing the simultaneous multi-slice acquisition of the plurality of image slices, wherein the predetermined inversion time is selected such that longitudinal magnetization of fat in the plurality of image slices recovers through a zero point when acquiring k-space data during the simultaneous multi-slice acquisition.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the simultaneous multi-slice acquisition is performed using a single-shot pulse sequence.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the single-shot pulse sequence is a balanced steady-state free precession pulse sequence or spoiled gradient echo sequence.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the acquisition process applies all of the volume-selective venous suppression pulses prior to applying the slice-selective background suppression pulses.

Assignees

• Siemens Healthcare Gmbh
• Northshore Univ Healthsystem

Inventors

• Giri Shivraman
• Edelman Robert R
• Koktzoglou Ioannis
• Bhat Himanshu

Classifications

• G01R33/5607

  by reducing the NMR signal of a particular spin species, e.g. of a chemical species for fat suppression, or of a moving spin species for black-blood imaging · CPC title

• G01R33/4835

  of multiple slices · CPC title

• G01R33/5635

  Angiography, e.g. contrast-enhanced angiography [CE-MRA] or time-of-flight angiography [TOF-MRA] · CPC title

• A61B5/0263 Primary

  using NMR · CPC title

• A61B5/7285

  for synchronizing or triggering a physiological measurement or image acquisition with a physiological event or waveform, e.g. an ECG signal · CPC title