Abstract:Magnetic resonance acoustic radiation force imaging (MR-ARFI), a new guided technique for high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) therapy, can detect micro-scale displacement in soft tissue and implement HIFU focal localization. In this work, readout segmented echo plane imaging (rs-EPI) is used as a new MRARFI sequence to accelerate MR-ARFI imaging techniques. Compared with single shot echo plane imaging (ss-EPI) and 2DSE ARFI, the proposed method is time-efficient and more robust to image distortion. The quantification results show that the tissue displacements obtained by our method have high reproducibility and consistency compared with the other two methods. The displacement maps acquired in plane parallel and perpendicular to the ultrasound propagation direction are also consistent around the focal point. The capability of providing good image quality in both directions of rs-EPI facilitates better volumetric displacement mapping around the HIFU focal point. In general, segmented EPI is a potentially useful HIFU focal localization method in clinical application.