Dynamic improved motion-sensitized driven-equilibrium steady-state free precession (dynamic iMSDE SSFP) has been introduced to visualize the irregular flow of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), which obtains this data in 2D. To improve visibility of CSF space at a wide range, we here proposed a new technique using 3D-free factor. The results showed that fluid motions were sensitively suppressed by iMSDE, similar to 2D acquisition. Thus, this technique may detect irregular CSF motion at the wide range.
We used a new technique of k-space trajectory called 3D-free factor. The theory of one shot 3D flow sensitive cine MR imaging is shown in Figure1. The equipment we used was a 1.5T clinical scanner (Achieva nova dual, Philips, Best, the Netherlands) with either a 32ch SENSE torso cardiac coil (phantom study) or a 6ch SENSE head coil (volunteer study). The technique for cine MR imaging was based on 3D balanced TFE with iMSDE.
Phantom study: The flow phantom was made with superabsorbent polymer and tubes (Fig.2) with steady flow. The basic scan parameters were as follows: T2prepTE of 20ms, FOV of 350×350, matrix of 192 ×224, TR/TE = 4.5/2.2 ms, flip angle of 90°, slice thickness of 3 mm, reduction factor of 2.0, number of slices = 20, NSA:1, and dynamic scan = 20 (MSG-off:10, MSG-on:10). To evaluate the effect of motion sensitized gradients (MSG), the signal intensity of flowing water in the tube was measured with varying flow speed (0.9–9.78 cm/sec), k-space ordering (linear, low-high), and shot duration time (707–2263 ms) in cross section.
Volunteer study: The study was approved by the local institutional review board and written informed consent was obtained from all volunteers. To evaluate effect of iMSDE different voxel size, we scanned sagittal planes of the brain in seven healthy volunteers. The basic scan parameters were as follows: T2prepTE of 20 ms, FOV of 280×280 mm, matrix of 192 ×224, TR/TE = 4.5/2.2 ms, flip angle of 90°, reduction factor of 4.0, number of slices = 17, k-space ordering = linear, NSA = 1, velocity encoding (VENC)=1cm/sec (directions of MSG ; FH, AP, RL), and dynamic scan = 30 (MSG-off:15, MSG-on:15). The signal intensities of the fourth ventricle were measured with and without iMSDE on different slice thickness (1.5, 2.5, and 3.5 mm) and matrix size (256×256, 192×192, and 128×128). Differences in signal intensity with and without iMSDE were assessed using two-tailed paired t-tests. A P value of less than 0.01 was considered to indicate a statistically significant difference. To investigate the usefulness of the present sequence, one healthy volunteer with communication between the septum pellucidum and third ventricle underwent MRI with optimized parameters.