Overview of Short and Ultrashort T2/T2* Echo Time (UTE) Imaging

Imaging of tissues (or, indeed, anything else) with short and ultrashort T2/T2* components is still very much in its infancy, in spite of the significant time since the first clinical applications were published. A key aspect of this topic is the use of short and ultrashort TE pulse sequences, but a consequence of the early stage of development is that there is not yet an agreed definition of what precisely is meant by the term UTE Imaging. The purpose of this article is to deal with issues of this type and provide a framework into which other, more detailed, articles can be fitted. Keywords: short T2 and T2* tissues; UTE imaging; susceptibility weighting; sequence design; clinical applications