Multibaseline PRF-shift magnetic resonance thermometry

1. A multibaseline method of performing proton resonance frequency (PRF) thermometry, the method comprising the steps of:

acquiring a plurality of PRF baseline images of an imaging region, each baseline image corresponding to a PRF phase background during the imaging region's cycle of motion;

acquiring a PRF treatment image of the imaging region subsequent to temperature change of a subregion within the imaging region;

estimating a phase background of the imaging region by fitting a combination of the PRF baseline images to the treatment image; and

estimating a temperature distribution within the subregion based on the treatment image and the estimated phase background.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the combination of the baseline images comprises a weighted average of the baseline image.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein fitting the combination of the baseline images comprises determining weights associated with the weighted average.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the combination of the baseline images comprises a nonlinear combination of the baseline images.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising spatially shifting at least one of the baseline images, and adding a resulting shifted baseline images to the plurality of baseline images.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein the phase background is estimated by fitting a combination of a subset of the baseline images to the treatment image, the baseline images of the subset being selected based on navigator information.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the treatment image and the baseline images comprise real-space image data.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the treatment image and the baseline images comprise k-space raw data.

9. The method of claim 8 , wherein the treatment image comprises a plurality of k-space segments and the and baseline images each comprise a plurality of corresponding k-space segments, and wherein the combination of baseline images is fitted to the treatment image for each k-space segment independently.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the phase background is modified, prior to estimating the temperature distribution, by a smooth extension of the phase surrounding the subregion into the subregion.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein the baseline and treatment images are two-dimensional.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the baseline and treatment images are three-dimensional.

13. The method of claim 1 , wherein the baseline and treatment images are acquired with multiple MRI receiver coils.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein the baseline images and the treatment images are each combined across the MRI receiver coils prior to the phase background estimation.

15. The method of claim 13 , wherein the phase background is estimated independently for each MRI receiver coil, and the temperature distribution is synthesized based on weighted combinations, across receiver coils, of the treatment images and estimated phase backgrounds.

16. The method of claim 13 , wherein the phase background is estimated for each MRI receiver coil while parameters associated with the estimations are shared across the receiver coils.

17. The method of claim 13 , wherein the temperature distribution is estimated using a penalized-likelihood algorithm applied jointly to the baseline and treatment images acquired with the multiple MRI receiver coils.

18. A system for performing multibaseline proton resonance frequency (PRF) shift thermometry, the system comprising:

(a) a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) unit;

(b) a control module in communication with the MRI unit and configured to cause the MRI unit to:

acquire a plurality of PRF baseline images of an imaging region, each baseline image corresponding to a PRF phase background during the imaging region's cycle of motion;

acquire a PRF treatment image of the imaging region subsequent to temperature change of a subregion within the imaging region;

estimate a phase background of the imaging region by fitting a combination of the PRF baseline images to the treatment image; and

estimate a temperature distribution within the subregion based on the treatment image and the estimated phase background; and

(c) a display for displaying the temperature distribution.