Elliptical Field-of-View PROPELLER Imaging

Traditionally two-dimensional scans are designed to support an isotropic field-of-view (iFOV). When imaging elongated objects, significant savings in scan time can potentially be achieved by supporting an elliptical field-of-view (eFOV). This work presents an empirical closed-form solution to adapt the PROPELLER trajectory for an eFOV. The proposed solution is built on the geometry of the PROPELLER trajectory permitting the scan prescription and data reconstruction to remain largely similar to standard PROPELLER. The achieved FOV is experimentally validated by the point spread function (PSF) of a phantom scan. The details of potential savings in scan time and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) performance in comparison to iFOV scans for both phantom and in-vivo images are also described. Magn Reson Med 62:808-814, 2009. (C) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.