Rapid MR elastography (MRE) techniques using spatially-selective excitations to reduce acquisition times to a few seconds or less were devised and tested. The techniques included reduced field of view (rFOV) MRE and 1D MRE (beam MRE) using 2D spatially selective RF excitations for gradient-echo (GRE) applications and intersecting 90 degrees and 180 degrees slice-selective excitations for spin-echo (SE) applications. It was shown that scan times could be reduced by a factor of 8 using rFOV MRE, and by 64 using beam MRE, while still obtaining stiffness estimates comparable to full-FOV MRE. Results were shown in gel phantom experiments as well as in the case of a preserved postmortem breast tissue specimen with a stiff lesion. These methods can be used to more rapidly interrogate regions of interest (ROIs) in tissue to quickly obtain information about the viscoelastic properties of that tissue.
Copyright 2006 Wiley-Liss, Inc.