Paediatrics Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
5-1-2010
Journal
Journal of Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Volume
31
Issue
5
First Page
1264
Last Page
1271
URL with Digital Object Identifier
10.1002/jmri.22111
Abstract
Purpose: To address phase and amplitude errors for multi-point water-fat separation with "bipolar" acquisitions, which efficiently collect all echoes with alternating read-out gradient polarities in one repetition. Materials and Methods: With the bipolar acquisitions, eddy currents and other system nonidealities can induce inconsistent phase errors between echoes, disrupting water-fat separation. Previous studies have addressed phase correction in the read-out direction. However, the bipolar acquisitions may be subject to spatially high order phase errors as well as an amplitude modulation in the read-out direction. A method to correct for the 2D phase and amplitude errors is introduced. Low resolution reference data with reversed gradient polarities are collected. From the pair of low-resolution data collected with opposite gradient polarities, the two-dimensional phase errors are estimated and corrected. The pair of data are then combined for water-fat separation. Results: We demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively remove the high order errors with phantom and in vivo experiments, including obliquely oriented scans. Conclusion: For bipolar multi-echo acquisitions, uniform water-fat separation can be achieved by removing high order phase errors with the proposed method. © 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc.