Time efficient parallel imaging for 2D multi-slice MRI with continuously moving table

Introduction In whole body MRI with continuously moving table (CMT-MRI) the acquisition time is an important issue. In particular for examinations performed during breath holding, the number of required breath holding phases should be small and the duration of each breath holding phase as short as possible. In the 2D multi-slice approach to CMT-MRI investigated here, parallel imaging with no higher reduction factors than R = 2 is feasible to speedup the acquisition due to the used coils and the acquisition scheme. In this study the recently introduced z-GRAPPA method [1] is applied to accelerate CMT-MRI. In contrast to the conventional GRAPPA algorithm [2], this method avoids the acquisition of additional data for calibration, but combines k-space lines from adjacent slices for coil weight computation. For a clinically relevant protocol, the duration of one breath holding phase could be reduced by 18 %.