Artifact reduction in true-FISP imaging of the coronary arteries by adjusting imaging frequency

• Published in: Magnetic resonance in medicine Vol. 49; no. 5; pp. 803 - 809
• Main Authors: Deshpande, Vibhas S., Shea, Steven M., Li, Debiao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Wiley Subscription Services, Inc., A Wiley Company 01.05.2003; Williams & Wilkins
• Subjects: Adult; Biological and medical sciences; coronary arteries; Coronary Vessels - anatomy & histology; fast imaging; Female; frequency adjustment; Humans; Imaging, Three-Dimensional - methods; magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); Magnetic Resonance Imaging - methods; Male; Medical sciences; Middle Aged; MR angiography; steady-state free precession (SSFP); magnetic resonance imaging (MRI); coronary arteries; frequency adjustment; steady-state free precession (SSFP); MR angiography; fast imaging
• ISSN: 0740-3194; 1522-2594
• DOI: 10.1002/mrm.10442

The presence of resonance frequency offsets often causes artifacts in images acquired with true fast imaging with steady‐state precession (true‐FISP). One source of resonance offsets is a suboptimal setting of the synthesizer frequency. The goal of this work was to demonstrate that shifting the synthesizer frequency could minimize the off‐resonance related image artifacts in true‐FISP. A simple scouting method was developed to estimate the optimal synthesizer frequency for the volume of interest (VOI). To improve fat suppression, a similar scouting method was also developed to determine the optimal frequency offset for the fat saturation pulse. Coronary artery imaging was performed in healthy subjects using a 3D true‐FISP sequence to validate the effectiveness of the frequency corrections. Substantial reduction in image artifacts and improvement in fat suppression were observed by using the water and fat frequencies estimated by the scouting scans. Frequency shifting is a useful and practical method for improving coronary artery imaging using true‐FISP. Magn Reson Med 49:803–809, 2003. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.