3D fast flair: a CSF-nulled 3D fast spin-echo pulse sequence

Since its introduction, the fluid attenuated inversion recovery (FLAIR) sequence has found many applications in the central nervous system (CNS), because of its heavy T2 weighting and excellent cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) suppression. More recently fast spin-echo based variants have been developed that greatly reduce scan time; such sequences are often referred to as “fast FLAIR.” We present what we believe to be the first implementation of FLAIR using a three dimensional (3D) fast spin-echo-based pulse sequence, which combines the cerebrospinal fluid suppression and good lesion contrast of two-dimensional fast FLAIR with the advantages of a three-dimensional sequence such as higher signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) per unit time, thinner slices (giving reduced partial volume effect) and the ability to reformat the data in an arbitrary plane.