General Electric Company

Baldev S Ahluwalia

Cynthia Faye Maier

Elisabeth Angelos

The present invention provides a system and method for on-the-fly optimization of the timing of suppression pulses and a k-space filling scheme for user-prescribed imaging parameters. The invention also minimizes total data acquisition time for the sequence tailored to the particular user-prescribed imaging parameters. A pulse sequence uses a 180&#xb0; pulse to invert the magnetization corresponding to the suppressed tissue so that a maximum amount of time is provided to play out alpha or imaging pulses after each inversion. The pulse sequence optimizes the number of alpha pulses played out after each inversion pulse based on a specific protocol or imaging parameters selected by the user. This pulse sequence allows for a modified k-space filling scheme that places, at the center of k-space, the echo that most closely corresponds to the null point of the suppressed tissue. For the first inversion pulse, a flip angle less than 180&#xb0; is used to drive the suppressed tissue magnetization into a steady-state condition immediately.

Method and apparatus of gradient echo imaging with on-the-fly optimization of tissue suppression

An MR imaging pulse sequence provides a method for simultaneous data acquisition from more than one independently prescribed volume while providing optimized field uniformity during both the magnetization preparation and data acquisition parts of the acquisition. The method is based on the use of a multi-element array coil where individual RF coil elements are more sensitive to one of the separate volumes of interest than to the other volumes. In the example of breast imaging, one scenario would have two coil elements that are designed to be most sensitive to the signal from the left breast, and two coil elements that are designed to be most sensitive to the signal from the right breast. An optimized pulse sequence and reconstruction technique is used to simultaneously acquire two separate sagittal imaging volumes corresponding to the left and right breasts with optimized fat suppression.

Growing community of inventors

Milwaukee, WI, United States of America

Baldev S Ahluwalia