Reconstruction Fidelity of Free-Breathing Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (MRF) Reconstructions for Scan Time Reductions

Motivation: Longer scan times of free-breathing scans increase patient discomfort and motion artifacts. Reducing scan time will help clinical adaptation of free-breathing Magnetic Resonance Fingerprinting (MRF). Goal(s): Reduced acquisition time for free-breathing MRF while maintaining similar precision in the abdomen. Approach: Decrease collected MRF data points during reconstruction by binning end-exhalation and end-inhalation states simulating acquisition time reduction. Results: Compared to previous free-breathing MRF reconstructions, our proposed approach showed similar results in a reduced scan time. We demonstrate that even distribution of respiratory bins over MRF acquisition matters, highlighting the need for adaptive acquisitions and higher quality data instead of more data. Impact: Reducing acquisition and exam time is important for patient comfort and adoption of MRF into clinical workflows. We reduce required MRF with PT scan times in the abdomen while maintaining quantitative tissue characterization fidelity, laying groundwork for better adaptive acquisitions.