3D flow-insensitive vessel wall imaging using T2-prepared SSFP with PSIR

Abstract

Introduction Double Inversion Recovery (DIR) [1] and Flow Sensitive Diffusion (FSD)[2] have been used to in vessel wall imaging. However, the black blood effect of DIR and FSD depends on the inflow, which is sensitive to slow or inplane flow. In this work, T1, T2 difference between blood/ vessel wall was exploited using a T2-prepared non-selective inversion preparation for flow-insensitive vessel wall imaging. To alleviate the dependence of blood/vessel wall contrast on the choice of TI and heart rate in ECG-triggered data acquisition, a Phase Sensitive Inversion Recovery (PSIR) [3] approach was used.