Conventional MRI is typically used to obtain detailed anatomical images of organs and physiological processes in the body, but due to a long echo time, MRI is unable to image some tissues such as cortical bone or cells in tumor that have rapid signal decay. There is an emerging, unmet clinical demand for noninvasive visualization of these blind tissues in high resolution for use in disease diagnosis and treatment, monitoring human tissues like cortical bone, tendons, ligaments, and muscles, and for the evaluation of cell metabolic activities that are invisible to conventional MRI.
Description
Acquisition-weighted stack of spirals AWSOS is a novel pulse sequence designed for ultra-short echo time MRI for use on human tissue with rapid signal decay. A novel facet of AWSOS is the two-dimensional spiral readouts and a variable post-excitation delay that make it possible to achieve simultaneous high-resolution and ultra-short echo time; with AWSOS, the scan time is reduced by a factor of 4-10 compared to other acquisition methods at the same resolution. In addition, the signal decay is minimized and a 3D image with high in-plane resolution can be produced on clinical MRI scanners. In this way, it is possible to noninvasively visualize tissues such as cartilage knee menisci, ligaments, and tumor or therapeutic cells that typically are not visible using conversional MRI.
Applications
• Non-invasive proton MRI for disease diagnosis and treatment by monitoring human tissues such as cortical bone, tendons, ligaments, and muscles
• Non-invasive non-proton MRI for metabolic activity evaluation of cells in
tumors or cells during ischemia
• Use in hospitals, scientific research institutions, and MRI manufacturing
industries
Advantages
• High in-plane spatial resolution, on the order of 1 mm
• Short scan time 4-10 fold lower than conventional acquisition methods,
on the order of 3 minutes
• Applicable to any part of human body or any organ in the body
Invention Readiness
Concept, design, pulse sequence development, phantom and
human data collections are complete.
IP Status
https://patents.google.com/patent/US7750632B2; https://patents.google.com/patent/US8022704B2
