Calibration-free Multidimensional Universal Refocusing Pulse Design for 3D Reduced Field-of-View Prostate Imaging

Motivation: Universal pulses have been shown to be robust to B1+ inhomogeneity for brain imaging at 7T, without time-consuming online design. A similar approach may be useful for designing multidimensional RF pulses for the 3D prostate imaging at 3T. Goal(s): To design a universal multidimensional refocusing pulse and demonstrate its potential use for reduced field-of-view imaging in the prostate. Approach: A three-dimensional universal refocusing pulse was designed using 6 subjects and validated in 12 subjects and in vivo prostate imaging at 3T. Results: The proposed 3D universal refocusing pulse achieved similar performance on seen and unseen subjects. We successfully acquired reduced field-of-view prostate images. Impact: Our simulation and in vivo results demonstrated the potential to design one universal 3D refocusing pulses for most subjects in prostate imaging.