SUSCEPTIBILITY ARTIFACT REDUCTION IN FAT-SUPPRESSION

Strong fat signal in regions where a large susceptibility difference e xists, for instance at the interface between air and tissue near the m axillary sinus, may not be eliminated by currently available fat suppr ession techniques without sacrificing the overall quality of the image s. In this article, we show that this fat signal, which appears as a s usceptibility artifact, can be significantly reduced by using an optim ized presaturation pulse with sharp edges and a broad bandwidth, while causing minimal disturbance of the water signal, Several optimized pr esaturation pulses can be reproduced by the Fourier coefficients provi ded in the Appendix.