Patent ID: 9664760
Date: 2017-05-30
CPC Classifications: A61B,G01R,G16H

Claim:
1. A method for selective sampling to assess tissue texture using magnetic resonance (MR) comprising: applying a contrast mechanism enhancing the contrast between the component tissue types in a multiphase biologic sample being measured; selectively exciting a volume of interest (VOI) employing a plurality of time varying radio frequency signals and applied gradients; applying an encoding gradient pulse to induce phase wrap to create a spatial encode for a specific k-value and orientation, the specific k-value determined based on texture within the VOI; initiating a time varying series of gradients to produce a time varying trajectory through 3D k-space of k-value encodes, a resulting k-value set being a subset of that required to produce an image of the VOI; simultaneously recording multiple sequential samples of the NMR RF signal encoded with the k-value set; post processing the recorded NMR signal samples to produce a data set of signal vs k-values for k-values in the k-value set determined by the trajectory, to characterize the textural features of tissue in the VOI.