Free Breathing Abdominal Imaging with Fat-Water Separation Using 3D Radial Stack-of-Stars Trajectory

In earlier studies of fat-water separation using dynamic imaging applications, the three-dimensional (3d) mri failed to provide high spatial and temporal resolution. this work proposes a fat-water separation strategy in the abdomen during free breathing using the 3d stack-of-stars (sos) radial sampling technique. radial trajectories are less sensitive to motion and have a higher sampling density for the central k-space, allowing for better performance in capturing dynamic information. to this end, a 3d radial truefisp sequence was modified to enable the echo time te to change from projection to projection, where all z-phase encoding was acquired at a single projection angle before switching to the next projection angle. as a result, the fat signal is forced to behave in a specific and easily recognizable fashion over time. using temporal processing, temporal variations imposed on fat signals can be recognized and fat signals can be separated from water signals.