Volumetric Perfusion Imaging of the Kidney with Balanced Steady-State Free Precession Arterial Spin Labeling

Abstract

For the kidney perfusion imaging, balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) readout is preferred because of weak perfusion signal and field inhomogeneity. However, kidney perfusion imaging with bSSFP is restricted to 2D, due to the long scan time of bSSFP and T1 decay of perfusion signal. In this study, we employed compressed sensing (CS) algorithm to increase spatial coverage of three-dimensional perfusion imaging in the kidney using pseudo-continuous arterial spin labeling (pCASL) with bSSFP readout.