Whole‐body 3D water/fat resolved continuously moving table imaging

Abstract

Purpose:To study the feasibility of three-dimensional (3D) whole-body, head-to-toe, water/fat resolved MRI, using continuously moving table imaging technology. Materials and Methods:Experiments were performed on nine healthy volunteers, acquiring 3D whole-body head-totoe data under continuous motion of the patient table. Two different approaches for water/fat separation have been studied. Results of a three-point chemical shift encoding and a spectral presaturation technique were compared with respect to image quality and performance. Furthermore, fast, low-resolution, whole-body water/fat imaging was performed in two minutes total scan time to derive patient-specific parameters such as the total water/fat ratio, the intraperitoneal/extraperitoneal fat ratio, and the body mass index (BMI). Results:Good water/fat separation with decent image quality was obtained in all cases. The three-point chemical shift encoding approach was found to be more efficient with respect to signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and acquisition time. Conclusion:Whole-body water/fat sensitive MRI using continuous table motion is feasible and could be of interest for clinical practice. Some improvements of the method are desirable.

Automated assessment of whole‐body adipose tissue depots from continuously moving bed MRI: A feasibility study

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Segmentation and quantification of adipose tissue by magnetic resonance imaging

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“…Future research can be aimed at developing alternative imaging approaches for analyzing total body fat distribution. A good candidate imaging approach might be three-point chemical shift-encoded MR imaging ( 10 ).…”