BODY

Three Tesla magnetic resonance (MR) imaging scanners have been seeing steadily increasing use recently

as hardware has matured and pulse sequences have

become more optimized for a higher field strength.

This increase in popularity has been more pronounced for neurologic and musculoskeletal imaging

than for body imaging, however, due to the fact that

3T imaging with the larger field of view required for

the torso tends to be more susceptible to artifacts and

energy absorption limits than the imaging of smaller

body parts.

Imaging artifacts at 3T tend to be more numerous

and/or more pronounced than at lower field strengths

[1]. While most of these artifacts are the same ones

encountered at lower field strengths (e.g., flow artifacts, motion artifacts, Gibbs ringing), many are more

peculiar to high-field imaging. This chapter will discuss these field strength-related artifacts at 3T as they

apply to body imaging with specific comparisons made

to 1.5T. The differences in relaxation times, chemical

shift effects, and issues related to field inhomogeneity

will also be discussed. Various approaches to mitigating artifacts peculiar to an increase in field strength at

3T will also be addressed.