DIFFUSION IMAGING WITH A MULTI-ECHO MISSTEC SEQUENCE

An imaging method is presented to measure the water-diffusion coeffici ent. The sequence (MISSTEC) uses the simultaneous acquisition of a spi n echo and several stimulated echoes with the same intensity except fo r diffusion weighting. The optimal number of stimulated echoes was cal culated to minimize the diffusion coefficient error (D). D values obta ined in vitro and in vivo were in good agreement with those from the s pin-echo sequence (IntraVoxel Incoherent Motion [IVIM] method). The to tal acquisition time is half that of the classic IVIM method.