Simultaneous Myocardial T1, T2, T1ρ and Fat Fraction Mapping with Hybrid Dual-echo Cartesian Acquisition and Dictionary Matching

Motivation: Simultaneous cardiac parameters and fat quantification enables comprehensive myocardial tissue characterization. However, the water-fat MR fingerprinting techniques have complex image processing. Goal(s): To develop a cardiac water-fat multi-parametric mapping technique with single-shot Cartesian acquisition and dictionary matching. Approach: A novel Dixon-MultiMap sequence is proposed integrating the hybrid dual-echo Dixon readout into the multi-parametric mapping framework. The hybrid dual-echo data forms a four-echo dataset for accurate fat fraction and B0 estimations, and the derived B0 map is used as prior information for dual-echo water-fat separation of the multi-contrast images. Results: Fat fraction and water-only T1, T2, T1ρ can be accurately estimated using Dixon-MultiMap. Impact: The proposed Dixon-MultiMap achieves simultaneous multiple parameters and fat quantification with single-shot Cartesian acquisition and dictionary matching, which has simplified post-processing and holds great potential for clinical translation.