Purpose: To quantitatively and qualitatively compare fat-suppressed MRI qualityusing iterative decomposition of water and fat with echo asymmetry and leastsquaresestimation (IDEAL) with that using frequency selective fat-suppression (FSFS)T2- and postcontrast T1-weighted fast spin-echo images of the head and neck at 3T.
Materials and Methods: The study was approved by our Institutional Review Board.
Prospective MR image analysis was performed in 36 individuals at a single-center.
Axial fat suppressed T2- and postcontrast T1-weighted images with IDEAL andFSFS were compared. Visual assessment was performed by two independent readerswith respect to; 1) metallic artifacts around oral cavity, 2) susceptibility artifactsaround upper airway, paranasal sinus, and head-neck junction, 3) homogeneity of fatsuppression, 4) image sharpness, 5) tissue contrast of pathologies and lymph nodes.
The signal-to-noise ratios (SNR) for each image sequence were assessed.
Conclusion: IDEAL technique improves image quality in the head and neck byreducing artifacts with homogeneous fat suppression, while maintaining a high SNR.