Reduced slab boundary artifact in multi-slab 3D fast spin-echo imaging

Abstract

The three-dimensional multi-slab fast spin-echo (3DFSE) sequence is a time-efficient technique for volume scanning which provides images with a good signal-to-noise ratio, adjustable contrast weighting, and high spatial resolution. Unfortunately, it suffers from slice-to-slice amplitude variation associated with imperfect slab definition. This slab boundary artifact becomes especially apparent when multiplanner reformatting is used to create alternate anatomical views. The shifted interleaved multi-volume acquisition (SIMVA) described here suppresses slab boundary artifact in image space. It displaces each slab (RF excitation) position incrementally along the slice (z) axis, in coordination with the primary phase encode step, so that the slab boundary artifact is converted into a correctable amplitude modulation in the primary phase encode direction (k(y)-axis). After the Fourier transform in primary phase encoding, the slab boundary artifact is mapped into a different and less severe artifact on a different spatial axis. Preliminary measurements show that SIMVA reduces the slab boundary artifact by an order of magnitude in multiplanar reformatted views. (C) 2000 Wiley-Liss, Inc.