Motivation: CEST MRI is on the verge of becoming a widely used method in clinics for tumor early detection and cancer treatment monitoring. However, technical difficulties, mainly long scan times due to long preparations and inefficient readouts still hinder its wider adoption. Goal(s): We propose acceleration for multi-slice CEST MRI methods, pushing towards clinical use. Approach: We developed a multi-slice spiral steady-state CEST sequence, evaluated on phantom measurements. We demonstrate initial in-vivo results in a healthy brain. Results: We show that combining steady-state CEST with spiral readouts delivers acceleration of multi-slice CEST MRI, while maintaining state-of-the-art duty-cycle, image quality and CEST effect sizes. Impact: Here, we propose steady-state CEST sequences with spiral readout to accelerate multi-slice CEST MRI while maintaining high duty-cycles and image quality.
Hammacher et al. (Tue,) studied this question.