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Abstract #2500

Very Low SAR Imaging of the Lower Leg Using Variable Angle for Uniform Signal Excitation (VUSE) and Balanced SSFP Without RF Phase Cycling

Subashini Srinivasan1, 2, J Paul Finn1, 3, Daniel B. Ennis1, 2

1Department of Radiological Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States; 2Biomedical Engineering Interdepartmental Program, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States; 3Biomedical Physics Interdepartmental Program, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Variable flip angle for uniform excitation (VUSE) has been used recently for bSSFP with RF phase alternation to generate constant transverse magnetization during transient imaging. Here, we present the calculation of the flip angle train and simulation for bSSFP without RF phase cycling (VUSEnoalt). The simulation results show that the required flip angle train is very low in magnitude with high off-resonance sensitivity. 2D multi-slice interleaved, segmented images of the lower leg were acquired and the SNR of different tissues were compared with bSSFP and VUSEbSSFP. The results show that the low SAR property of VUSEnoalt may be useful especially when scanning patients with implanted devices or for non-contrast arterial angiography due to the good artery-vein contrast.

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Keywords

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