Free-Breathing, Gadoxetic Acid Enhanced, 3D T1w Phase Sensitive Inversion Recovery Hepatobiliary MRI Optimized for 3.0 Tesla

Gadoxetic acid (GA)-enhanced hepatobiliary phase (HBP) T1-weighted (T1w) MRI is well established for the detection of focal liver lesions. Previously, we proposed a novel imaging method to improve T1 contrast in GA-enhanced HBP T1w images for the purpose of improved detection and characterization of liver lesions. The proposed method provides volumetric, high-resolution phase-sensitive inversion recovery (PSIR) T1w images of the liver from a free-breathing image acquisition. This study focuses on the impact of flip angle and spoiling on image quality. Our findings indicate 6-8 degrees flip angle in combination with gradient spoiling provides optimal image quality and T1 contrast.