Purpose: To measure longitudinal relaxation rate (R1) changes during contrast agent studies using a driven equilibrium single pulse observation of T1 (DESPOT) method with a sliding window (sw) acquisition.
Materials and methods: A sw-DESPOT technique was implemented that uses several three-dimensional (3D) image data sets to calculate R1 with a temporal resolution of only a single data set. Different sources of systematic errors were studied in simulations, and the technique was tested in a tumor-bearing mouse using an intravascular contrast agent.
Results: Consistent concentration distributions of the CA were calculated with a temporal resolution of 10 s.
Conclusion: Sw-DESPOT offers a precise and fast method to monitor the CA dynamics in 3D volumes.