Accelerated 3D echo-planar spectroscopic imaging at 4 Tesla using modified blipped phase-encoding.

Whole-brain echo-planar spectroscopic imaging (EPSI) often substantially lengthens MRI/MRSI (magnetic resonance spectroscopic imaging) protocols. To halve acquisition time, application of a blipped phase-encoding (PE) gradient during the EPSI readout (RO) was previously suggested by PE of the even RO echoes in k-space at an interstitial location along k(PE), separated from the odd RO echoes, effectively reducing the number of PEs by a factor of 2. However, the approach is very susceptible to phase inconsistencies between even and odd RO echoes in the presence of B(0) inhomogeneities and gradient imbalance, leading to ghosting in the PE direction. In this work, the blipped PE gradient is placed in between pairs of even/odd RO gradient lobes to avoid these problems. This approach is demonstrated in a phantom and in normal human brain in vivo at 4T. While the proposed method allows substantial reduction in metabolite ghosting, it may be limited by the presence of a relatively large spurious signal at the Nyquist frequency.     

Fast decomposition of water and lipid using a GRASE technique with the IDEAL algorithm.

Three-point Dixon techniques achieve good lipid-water separation by estimating the phase due to field inhomogeneities. Recently it was demonstrated that the combination of an iterative algorithm (iterative decomposition of water and fat with echo asymmetry and least-squares estimation (IDEAL)) with a fast spin-echo (FSE) three-point Dixon method yielded robust lipid-water decomposition. As an alternative to FSE, the gradient- and spin-echo (GRASE) technique has been developed for efficient data collection. In this work we present a method for lipid-water separation by combining IDEAL with the GRASE technique. An approach to correct for errors in the lipid-water decomposition caused by phase distortions due to the switching of the readout gradient polarities inherent to GRASE is presented. The IDEAL-GRASE technique is demonstrated in phantoms and in vivo for various applications, including pelvic, musculoskeletal, and (breath-hold) cardiac imaging.     

99mTc-depreotide生长抑素受体显像的临床应用研究

生长抑素受体显像近年来研究较多，depreotide已成为其研究热点之一。Depreotide在诊断与鉴别诊断临床常见的孤立性肺结节方面有其独特优势；此外，^99mTc—depreotide生长抑素受体显像在乳腺癌、甲状腺癌、淋巴瘤等肿瘤及甲状腺相关性眼病等非肿瘤性疾病也有一定应用前景。     

Phase-sensitive cardiac tagging--REALTAG.

Fully inverting spins, instead of merely saturating them, provides superior contrast for tagging procedures. The resulting improvement in tag contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) yields higher-precision tag detection. Also, thinner slices and hence reduced tag separations can be employed, providing displacement and strain measurements with better spatial resolution. Alternatively, the improved tag contrast can be used to obtain cine images covering a greater portion of the cardiac cycle. The use of standard magnitude reconstruction for images of these inversion tags causes rectification of the negative-valued signals from the tags, confounding the image interpretation. Therefore, a phase-sensitive reconstruction scheme of the inverted tags must be employed. Here we demonstrate the implementation of inverted tags with phase-sensitive reconstruction in a ramped-flip-angle, steady-state free precession (SSFP) sequence.     

少见和不典型椎管肿瘤的MRI诊断和误诊分析

目的：探讨少见和不典型椎管肿瘤MRI误诊原因，提高对该类疾病的认识。资料与方法：对16例少见和不典型椎管肿瘤进行回顾性手术病理对照分析。结果：8例实性神经鞘瘤，7例MRI误诊为脊膜瘤，1例误诊为室管膜瘤；2例神经母细胞瘤误诊为硬膜外淋巴瘤和脊膜瘤；2例海绵状血管瘤误诊为神经鞘瘤；3例血管畸形误诊为室管膜瘤、神经鞘瘤和硬膜外脓肿：1例血管球瘤误诊为硬膜外淋巴瘤。结论：在评价椎管肿瘤方面，MRI具有绝对优势，根据肿瘤的位置、信号强度和均匀度，再辅以对比剂的恰当应用，不仅对典型的肿瘤能做出正确诊断，对不典型的和少见的椎管肿瘤也可提供更多可靠的信息。     

RF refocused echoes of J-coupled spin systems: effects on RARE-based spectroscopic imaging.

A numerical simulation tool was developed to calculate the echo amplitudes of J-coupled resonances within a series of radiofrequency (RF) refocused echoes. The signal modulation due to J-coupling in rapid acquisition with relaxation enhancement (RARE) is suppressed only when the inverse of the pulse interval (tau) is large compared to both the chemical shift (CS) difference (Deltadelta) of the coupled spins and the coupling constant. In contrast, the echo amplitudes in ultrafast low-flip-angle RARE (U-FLARE) oscillate around a quasi-steady-state value that is greater than zero (neglecting relaxation and diffusion) even when Deltadelta > 1/tau. The flip-angle distribution over the measured slice caused by the use of Gaussian-shape slice-selective refocusing pulses further reduces the echo oscillations. When the pulse interval falls short of the fast pulse rate regime, spectroscopic U-FLARE provides an improved spatial impulse response in the phase-encoding (PE) direction compared to spectroscopic RARE.     

磁共振扩散加权成像对超急性期、急性期脑缺血的应用价值

磁共振扩散加权成像(DWI)可以快速、无创地反映脑缺血区分子水平发生的微观变化,为临床提供信息,本文对其在超急性期、急性期脑缺血的应用价值和限度进行综述。