title: Improved venous suppression and spatial resolution with SENSE in elliptical centric 3D contrast-enhanced MR angiography.
abstract: The elliptical centric (EC) view order samples a 3DFT acquisition from the center of k-space outward, and when applied to contrast-enhanced MR angiography (CE-MRA) provides intrinsic venous suppression. This is because the veins enhance several seconds after the scan is initiated, and are thus encoded solely by noncentral k-space frequencies. A separate method, sensitivity encoding (SENSE), accelerates the k-space sampling rate by reducing the phase FOV or, equivalently, by increasing the k-space sampling interval, and has been used to increase spatiotemporal resolution. We hypothesized that by combining SENSE with EC, sampling of central k-space would be accelerated and the k-space radius at which the veins first showed contrast enhancement would be increased over a reference scan, thus providing improved venous suppression and spatial resolution without additional scan time. This hypothesis was studied with the use of phantom and carotid CE-MRA experiments, and the results demonstrated an approximate 25% reduction in venous signal when SENSE was used.
authors.affiliation: Magnetic Resonance Imaging Laboratory, Department of Radiology, Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, Rochester, Minnesota 55905, USA.
authors.forename: Houchun H
authors.initials: HH
authors.lastname: Hu
authors.forename: Ananth J
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Madhuranthakam
authors.forename: David G
authors.initials: DG
authors.lastname: Kruger
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Huston
authors.forename: Stephen J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Riederer
mesh_terms: D001783:Blood Flow Velocity; D002339:Carotid Arteries / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D003287:Contrast Media / Q000493:pharmacokinetics; D019786:Gadolinium DTPA / Q000493:pharmacokinetics; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D010690:Phlebography
chemical_list: D003287:Contrast Media; D019786:Gadolinium DTPA