TIME-RESOLVED CONTRAST-ENHANCED 3D MR-ANGIOGRAPHY

An MR angiographic technique, referred to as 3D TRICKS (3D time-resolv ed imaging of contrast kinetics) has been developed, This technique co mbines and extends to 3D imaging several previously published elements , These elements include an increased sampling rate for lower spatial frequencies, temporal interpolation of k-space views, and zero-filling in the slice-encoding dimension, When appropriately combined, these e lements permit reconstruction of a series of 3D image sets having an e ffective temporal frame rate of one volume every 2-6 s. Acquiring a te mporal series of images offers advantages over the current contrast-en hanced 3D MRA techniques in that it i) increases the likelihood that a n arterial-only 3D image set will be obtained, ii) permits the passage of the contrast agent to be observed, and iii) allows temporal-proces sing techniques to be applied to yield additional information, or impr ove image quality.