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Abstract #3322

Improved Frequency Selective Fat Suppression in the Cervical Spine and Neck with Tissue Susceptibility Matched Pyrolytic Graphite Foam

Gary Lee1, Caroline Jordan2, 3, Jeff McCormick4, Pamela Tiet5, Brian Hargreaves2, Steven Conolly1, 5

1Berkeley/UCSF Bioengineering Joint Graduate Group, Berkeley, CA, United States; 2Radiology, Stanford University; 3Bioengineering, Stanford University; 4Molecular Environmental Biology, University of California, Berkeley; 5Bioengineering, University of California, Berkeley

Many MRI applications are vulnerable to B0 inhomogeneity, including robust fat suppression, which requires better than 1 ppm homogeneity. We have tailored a pyrolytic graphite composite foam with magnetic susceptibility matched to human tissue. Here, we have experimentally demonstrated that PG foam cushions improve the B0 field uniformity to the critical threshold of 1 ppm in the neck of 6 normal volunteers at 3T. The tissue susceptibility matched PG foams consistently mitigated signal drop out, improved image SNR, and enabled far more robust frequency selective fat suppression in T1-weighted GRE images in volunteers.

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Keywords

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