Half-Radial Balanced Steady-State Free Precession for Functional Lung Imaging with Matrix Pencil Decomposition at 3T

Motivation: At 3T, functional lung imaging with balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) is prone to off-resonance artifacts. Goal(s): Mitigation of bSSFP off-resonance artifacts at 3T by minimizing its TR beyond current limits. Approach: We designed a half-radial bSSFP technique for functional lung imaging with matrix pencil decomposition. This allows to further substantially reduce the TR as compared to conventional Cartesian bSSFP with asymmetric echo readout. Results: Half-radial bSSFP showed higher contrast-to-noise ratios for ventilation and perfusion images as compared to Cartesian bSSFP. Especially in peripheral lung regions, improved contrast and reduced banding artifacts were observed. Impact: This work demonstrates that functional lung matrix pencil decomposition MRI using half-radial bSSFP is feasible at 3T. The adapted acquisition scheme helps to supress off-resonance artifacts and can be used as an alternative to the contemporary Cartesian k-space sampling approach.