UNASSIGNED: Parallel imaging is essential for the acceleration of abdominal and pelvic 2D multi-slice imaging, in order to reduce scan time and mitigate motion artifacts. @entity2996 ( @entity2996 ) accelerated imaging has been shown to increase the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) significantly compared with in-plane parallel imaging with similar acceleration. We hypothesize that for @entity2996 -accelerated abdominal imaging the consistency of image quality and SNR is more difficult to achieve due to the subject-specific coil sensitivity profiles, caused by (1) flexible coil placement; (2) variations in anatomy; and (3) variations in scan coverage along the superior-inferior direction. To test this, a mathematical framework is introduced that calculates the (retained) SNR for in-plane and @entity9689 ( @entity9689 )-accelerated acquisitions. Moreover, this framework was used to optimize the sampling pattern by maximizing the local SNR within a region of interest (ROI) through non-linear, RF-induced @entity2996 slice shifts. The framework was evaluated on 14 healthy subjects and the optimized sampling pattern was compared with in-plane acceleration and @entity2996 acceleration with linear slice shifts, which are primarily used in brain imaging. We demonstrate that the field of view (FOV) in the superior-inferior direction, the coil positioning and the individual anatomy have a large impact on the image SNR (changes up to 50% for varying coil positions and 40% differences between subjects) and image artifacts for @entity9689 acceleration. Consequently, sampling patterns have to be optimized for acquisitions employing different FOVs and ideally on an individual basis. Optimization of the sampling pattern, which exploits non-linear shifts between slices, showed a considerable SNR increase (10-30%) for higher acceleration factors. The framework outlined in this article can be used to optimize sampling patterns for a broad range of accelerated body acquisitions on an individual basis. Copyright    2015 John Wiley _ Sons, Ltd.

An optimization framework to maximize signal-to-noise ratio in XXXX body imaging.

@entity9689 :: ('MESH:C564969', 'Disease') :: ['SMS', 'simultaneous multi-slice'] @entity2996 :: ('MESH:C564543', 'Disease') :: ['Controlled Aliasing In Parallel Imaging Results IN Higher Acceleration', 'CAIPIRINHA']
@entity9689 :: (MESH:C564969,Disease) :: ['simultaneous multi-slice']
