Saturation Recovery Chemical Shift-Encoded T1 Mapping in the Liver

Motivation: 2D saturation recovery-based T1 mapping methods offer a promising approach to rapid confounder-corrected liver T1 mapping but may suffer from poor SNR performance and high variability. Goal(s): Propose and develop an optimized 2D saturation recovery chemical shift-encoded (SR-CSE) water-specific liver T1 mapping to improve measurement precision and reduce bias. Approach: Using validated signal models of saturation-prepared fat/water mixtures, mathematically optimize acquisition timing parameters and flip angle modulation schemes. Optimized acquisitions in a phantom and in vivo were obtained and validated against reference acquisitions. Results: The optimized acquisition scheme demonstrates improved precision in water-specific T1 mapping, free from bias relative to reference T1 measurements. Impact: The proposed optimized acquisition strategy improves the noise performance of 2D confounder-corrected liver T1 mapping, enabling robust liver coverage (9 slices) in a 20-second breath-hold. This improves the clinical viability of confounder-corrected T1 mapping for assessing liver disease.