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Abstract

A magnetic resonance gantry (A) includes a magnet (12) which generates a uniform magnetic field in a thin (under 15 cm thick) imaging volume (10). Gradient coils (30) and radio frequency coils (20) transmit radio frequency and gradient magnetic field pulses of conventional imaging sequences into the imaging volume. A patient support surface (42) moves a patient continuously through the imaging volume as the pulses of the magnetic resonance sequence are applied. A tachometer (52) monitors movement of the patient. A frequency scaler (54) scales the frequency of the RF excitation pulses applied by the transmitter (22) and the demodulation frequency of the receiver (26) in accordance with the patient movement such that the selected slice moves in synchrony with the patient through the imaging volume. The slice select gradient is indexed after magnetic resonance signals to generate a full set of views for reconstruction into a two-dimensional image representation of the slice are generated. The views for each slice are reconstructed (28) into a three-dimensional image representation that is stored in a memory (60). By using rapid imaging techniques, such as echo-planar techniques which can generate a two-dimensional image of a slice in 150 milliseconds, a three-dimensional diagnostic image of a section of a subject one meter long can be generated in less than 2 minutes.

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First Claim