Undersampled elliptical centric view-order for improved spatial resolution in contrast-enhanced MR angiography

Although contrast-enhanced MR angiography (CE-MRA) has been successfully developed into a routine clinical imaging technique, there is still need for improved spatial resolution in a given acquisition time. Undersampled projection reconstruction (PR) techniques maintain spatial resolution with reduced scan times, and the elliptical centric (EC) view order provides high quality arterial phase images without venous contamination. In this work, we present a hybrid elliptical centric-projection reconstruction (EC-PR) technique to provide spatial resolution improvement over standard EC in a given time. The k-space sampling was performed by undersampling the periphery of the k(Y)-k(Z) phase encoding plane of an EC view order in a PR like manner. The sampled views were maintained on a rectilinear grid, and thus reconstructed by standard 3DFT. The non-sampled views were compensated either by zero-filling or performing a 2D homodyne reconstruction. Compared to a fully sampled k-space, the EC-PR sequence acquired in the same scan time provides a resolution improvement of about two, as shown by point spread function analysis and phantom experiments. The hypothesis that EC-PR provides improved resolution while retaining diagnostically adequate SNR was tested in 11 CEMRA studies of the popliteal and carotid arteries and shown to be true (P < 0.03).