5594336 Three point technique using spin and gradient echoes for water/fat separation

Abstract

Magnetic resonance is excited (50) in first and second species dipoles of a subject in a temporally constant magnetic field. The resonance is refocused (52) to generate a spin echo (54) centered at a time when the first and second species resonance signals are in-phase. Gradients echoes (64, 68) are generated, centered at a time (2n+1)π/δω before and after the spin echo, where δω is a difference between the first and second species resonance frequencies. In this manner, the first and second species signals are 180° out-of-phase in the gradient echoes. The resonance is refocused (82) one or more times to generate additional spin and gradient echoes with different phase encodings (78). The sequence is repeated with yet more phase encodings, and magnetic resonance signals from the spin echo and the two gradient echoes are reconstructed (86) into a spin echo image (s0) and a pair of gradient echo images (s+1, s-1). A phase map is generated (90) from the spin and gradient echo images. One of the gradient echo images is corrected (116) with the phase map. The phase corrected gradient image is additively combined (118) with the spin echo image to generate a first species image (112) and is subtractively combined (120) to generate a second species image (114).