POSTER PRESENTATION Open Access Single breathhold 3D balanced SSFP coronary MRA at 3.0T: a reproducibility study

Balanced steady-state free precession (bSSFP) imaging [1] has developed as the method of choice for coronary MRA at 1.5T. The bSSFP acquisition, however, is especially susceptible to static magnetic field (B0) inhomogeneities and radio frequency transmit field (B1+) distortions, both of which are more pronounced at higher field strengths, resulting in degraded and variable image quality at 3.0T compared to 1.5T. Although modified bSSFP sequences have been recently developed [2], these modified implementations too come with notable drawbacks such as longer scan time and lower SNR compared with conventional bSSFP. Therefore, the adoption of bSSFP at 3.0T is still quite limited and it has led to reutilization of spoiled gradient echo techniques at 3.0T, sometimes at the expense o