Shared excitation phase encode grouping for improved throughput cardiac

Abstract

A patient's cardiac cycle is monitored (34) for a characteristic point (54) of the cardiac cycle. Following or in response to the characteristic point, a series of field echo sequences (FIG. 3 ) are applied to generate magnetic resonance echoes (50a, 50b, 50c, etc.) at about 10 millisecond intervals (TR=10 ms) following the characteristic point. The echoes are phase encoded (44) such that echoes phase encoded in a lowest frequency or central most segment (I) of k-space are generated at regular intervals. Between temporal consecutive segment (I) echoes, echoes with higher frequency phase encoding from segments (II) and (III) (FIG. 4 ), segments (II-IV) (FIGS. 5A, 5B), etc. are generated. The views are sorted (60) into data sets (62a, 62b, 62c, etc.) such that the central most views are sent to only a single data set and at least some of the higher frequency views are conveyed to two data sets, i.e., the high frequency views are shared or commonly used by two data sets. Each data set is reconstructed (64) into a corresponding frame image representation (66). In this manner, the central most views which carry the most information are unique to each image, but higher frequency views are shared by two temporally adjacent images. The images are displayed sequentially or in another selected order on a video monitor (76).