PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To acquire data (306) to reconstruct MR images across a large FOV (310) without significant slab-boundary artifacts and to reduce acquisition time. SOLUTION: At each table position, full z-encoding data (320) are acquired for a subset of transverse k-space data (330). A table (302) is moved through a number of positions over the desired FOV (310) and MR data (306) are acquired over the plurality of positions of the table (302). Since full z-data (306) are acquired for each slab, the data can be Fourier transformed (382) in z, interpolated, sorted, and aligned to match anatomic z locations (388). The fully sampled and aligned data are then Fourier transformed (392) in remaining dimension (s) to reconstruct (394) the final image that is free of the slab-boundary artifacts.
MOVING TABLE MRI WITH FREQUENCY-ENCODING IN Z-DIRECTION