Reduction of B1 sensitivity in selective single-slab 3D turbo spin echo imaging with very long echo trains.

Single-slab 3D turbo/fast spin echo (SE) imaging with very long echo trains was recently introduced with slab selection using a highly selective excitation pulse and short, nonselective refocusing pulses with variable flip angles for high imaging efficiency. This technique, however, is vulnerable to image degradation in the presence of spatially varying B(1) amplitudes. In this work we develop a B(1) inhomogeneity-reduced version of single-slab 3D turbo/fast SE imaging based on the hypothesis that it is critical to achieve spatially uniform excitation. Slab selection was performed using composite adiabatic selective excitation wherein magnetization is tipped into the transverse plane by a nonselective adiabatic-half-passage pulse and then slab is selected by a pair of selective adiabatic-full-passage pulses. Simulations and experiments were performed to evaluate the proposed technique and demonstrated that this approach is a simple and efficient way to reduce B(1) sensitivity in single-slab 3D turbo/fast SE imaging with very long echo trains. (c) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.