Fast MR Imaging of the Paediatric Abdomen with CAIPIRINHA-Accelerated T1w 3D FLASH and with High-Resolution T2w HASTE: A Study on Image Quality

Figure 2

Coronal T2w TIRM (a) and high-resolution T2w HASTE FS (b) imaging in an 8-year-old girl with chronic abdominal pain and normal abdominal ultrasonography. In the absence of any pathological findings, the TIRM image, owing to the long repetition time, is considerably blurred by motion artefacts in the restless and continuously shifting patient. Repeating the T2 TIRM sequence did not improve image quality. HASTE imaging does not show any motion artefacts and clearly depicts bony structures including the lower thoracic and lumbal spine as well as the abdominal organs. Incomplete saturation of fatty tissue signal towards lower image margin is more noticeable with HASTE than with TIRM imaging. Image quality was graded as IQ = 2 (TIRM) and IQ = 4 (HASTE).

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