Past magnetic resonance imaging of the abdomen with turbo-spin-echo pulse sequences

The purposes of this study was to optimize T2-weighted hybrid-RARE pulse sequences for clinical MR imaging of the liver. The ranges of the key scan variables, echo train length (ETL) and effective echo time (TEeff) were investigated. A total of thirteen "healthy" volunteers were scanned at 1.5 Tesla with an extensive array of hybrid-RARE pulses. Results indicated that the image quality of hybrid-RARE sequences with ETL of 11 and higher, regardless of the choice of TEeff were graded better than the reference conventional spin-echo (CSE) pulse sequence(p < 0.005). The image contrast between liver and spleen at higher ETL (greater than or equal to 13) were consistently superior compared to both CSE and the lower ETL sequences(p < 0.05), particularly at TEeff equals 120 ms (p < 0.01).