Mapping fat-water separated R1, R2*, and proton density fat fraction with the multi-echo MP2RAGE sequence

Purpose: To develop a technique for joint measurement of fat and water-specific longitudinal relaxation rates (R1f and R1w), effective transverse relaxation rate (R2*), and proton density fat fraction (PDFF) combining the Multi-Echo Magnetization Prepared Two Rapid Acquisition of Gradient Echoes (ME-MP2RAGE) sequence and fat-water separation.
Theory and Methods: R1f and R1w were calculated with fat-specific and water-specific MP2RAGE signals. R2* and PDFF maps were obtained from fat-water separation applied to the second RAGE block. Sequence parameters optimization was performed via Cramér-Rao lower bounds theory, and we designed four protocols with different combinations of number of echoes and readout gradient schemes (I: 3 echoes unipolar, II: 6 echoes unipolar, III: 6 echoes bipolar, and IV: 10 echoes bipolar). We tested and validated these protocols with numerical simulations, phantom and in vivo experiments. In phantoms, we compared ME-MP2RAGE measurements with inversion recovery spin-echo (IR-SE) global R1 and 3D Fast Low Angle Shot (3D FLASH) R2* and PDFF. In vivo, we scanned the lower leg and neck of a healthy volunteer.
Results: Numerical simulations showed accurate quantification of relaxation rates with mean relative bias < 3% and PDFF with mean bias < 0.003 using protocol ME-MP2RAGE IV (10 echoes bipolar). Phantom experiments showed excellent agreement with IR-SE and 3D FLASH measurements. In vivo, measurements in the lower leg and neck were consistent with literature values.
Conclusion: We proposed an accurate method for simultaneous quantification of R1f, R1w, R2*, and PDFF from a single acquisition with the ME-MP2RAGE sequence.