Prediction of the Incomplete Region of Fat Suppression Using the Banding Artifact of the Balanced Steady-state Free Precession Sequence

Abstract

When the fat-suppression technique was used in the MRI examinations of neck and extremities, incomplete regions of fat suppression were depicted frequently. These incomplete regions were caused by the non-uniform static magnetic field (B0). On the other hand, a non-uniform B0 caused banding artifacts using a balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) sequence. We investigated the prediction of incomplete regions of fat suppression using the banding artifacts of the bSSFP sequence. The fat-suppression techniques used in this study were the chemical shift selective and spectral adiabatic inversion recovery methods for turbo spin echo imaging. Using an oil bottle attached to a staple, the scan parameters of the bSSFP sequence were adjusted to overlap with the banding artifacts in the incomplete regions of fat suppression. The neck, ankle joint and femur of healthy volunteers were scanned using the obtained scan parameters, and a visual assessment was performed. As a result, the incomplete region of fat suppression matched the region of the banding artifact. We were able to predict the incomplete region of fat suppression using the banding artifacts of the bSSFP sequence. If the optimized bSSFP sequence is used as the localizer, we can assess the situation of incomplete fat suppression before the main scanning and reduce rescanning due to incomplete fat suppression.