Mr imaging with dixon-type water/fat separation

Abstract

The invention relates to a method of Dixon-type MR imaging. It is an object of the invention to provide a method that enables Dixon water/fat separation with high SNR and with improved noise propagation in the water/fat separation. The method comprises the steps of: —subjecting an object () to a first imaging sequence, which generates a number of differently phase encoded first MR echo signals at a first echo time, such that contributions from MR signals emanating from water protons and MR signals emanating from fat protons to the first MR echo signals are essentially in phase, —acquiring the first MR echo signals using a first signal receiving bandwidth, —subjecting the object () to a second imaging sequence which generates a number of differently phase encoded second MR echo signals at a second echo time, such that contributions from MR signals emanating from water protons and MR signals emanating from fat protons to the second MR echo signals are at least partially out of phase, —acquiring the second MR echo signals using a second signal receiving bandwidth which is larger than the first receiving bandwidth, wherein the number of phase encodings of the first imaging sequence is smaller than the number of phase encodings of the second imaging sequence, and —reconstructing a MR image from the first and second MR echo signals, whereby signal contributions from water protons and fat protons are separated. Moreover the invention relates to a MR device and to a computer program to be run on a MR device.