Banding artifact removal for bSSFP imaging with an elliptical signal model

Abstract

Purpose Balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) imaging has broad clinical applications by virtue of its high time efficiency and desirable contrast. Unfortunately, banding artifact is often seen as a result of signal modulation due to B0 inhomogeneity. This study aims to develop an effective method for banding artifact suppression. Methods bSSFP is analyzed with an elliptical signal model. A simple analytical "Geometric- Solution" (GS) is presented to demodulate the signal from B0 inhomogeneity dependence with phase-cycled bSSFP data from both a computer simulation and experiments using phantom and human subjects. Results The proposed algorithm is able to remove banding artifacts completely. It also compares favorably with the complex sum (CS), which is considered one of the more efficient methods for banding artifact correction. Conclusion Using an elliptical signal model, an analytical solution to the bSSFP banding problem has been found and demonstrated with simulation as well as phantom and in vivo experiments. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.