Diffusion-Weighted Imaging of the Abdomen with Readout-Segmented (RS)-EPI

Introduction: Diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) in the abdomen has proven useful for various pathologies, including liver lesion characterization [1-4] and simple vessel suppression, diagnosis of diffuse renal disease [5-8], and detection of metastatic spread to lymph nodes [9,10]. However, image distortions arising from the use of EPI has shown to be problematic. We have recently applied DW ‘Short-Axis Propeller’ (SAP)-EPI to the abdomen on adults to reduce geometric distortions via its faster k-space traversal [11]. In this work we explore the use of another short-axis readout technique, Readout-Segmented (RS)-EPI [12], for imaging the abdomen. As shown in Figure 1, the use of several adjacent segments in RS-EPI results in reduced distortion compared with EPI.