Abdominal radiology (New York)
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To evaluate acquisition time and clinical image quality of a variable refocusing flip angle (vrf) single-shot fast spin echo (SSFSE) sequence in comparison with a conventional SSFSE sequence for imaging of liver lesions in patients undergoing whole-body PET/MRI for oncologic staging. ⋯ Compared to conventional SSFSE, vrfSSFSE resulted in improved lesion contrast on simultaneous PET/MRI in patients with liver metastases. Due to decreased SAR demands, vrfSSFSE significantly decreased TR, allowing coverage of the entire liver in a single twenty-second breath hold. This may have important clinical implications in the setting of PET/MRI, where scan time is limited by the necessity of whole-body image acquisition in addition to bed specific imaging.