A method for visualization of MRI partial volume regions--PAIR (PArtial volume sensitised Inversion Recovery imaging).

The partial volume effect has a crucial influence on MRI in terms of the choice of slice thickness and slice orientation for diagnostic purposes, volume measurement, and quantification of tissue characteristics such as relaxation times, proton density, and magnetisation transfer contrast. It is, therefore, important to be able to assess the distribution and magnitude of partial volume voxels for an arbitrary slice thickness, slice orientation, and region of anatomy or pathology. There is currently no easy means of achieving this. We propose a novel inversion recovery based method for visualising regions of anatomy or pathology suffering from the partial volume effect, which we have termed PAIR (PArtial volume sensitised Inversion Recovery imaging). This method allows an informed trade off to be made between the partial volume effect and signal-to-noise ratio or imaging time. It also allows appropriate choice of imaging plane to reduce the partial volume effect, and facilitates choice of regions of interest for quantification purposes.