SINGLE-SHOT DIFFUSION-WEIGHTED TRACE IMAGING ON A CLINICAL SCANNER

The single-shot trace-weighted acquisition scheme for isotropic diffus ion imaging suggested by Mori and van Zijl (Magn, Reson. Med, 33, 41-5 2 (1995)) was implemented on a clinical scanner in combination with ec ho-planar imaging. The results on phantoms and seven volunteers show t hat good-quality multiplanar isotropic diffusion-weighted images can b e obtained within seconds and absolute D-av images within 10-40 s, dep ending on the number of gradient strengths used. However, care has to be taken in using this type of multi-bipolar-gradient sequence to avoi d measurement of artifactual diffusion constants due to background gra dient interference. It is outlined how to test for this interference a nd how to optimize for the correct experiment.