Burst Imaging—Can It Ever Be Useful in the Clinic?

Burst is an ultra-rapid imaging sequence that works by excitation of magnetization using a series of regularly spaced, low flip-angle pulses, applied at the same time as a gradient in the read direction. In the original concept, this gradient is constant, and multiple echoes are refocused under a constant-read gradient. This article brings together the previous literature on the subject, placing the various developments within a common framework. The potential of the technique is discussed, with the aid of a comparison of the signal-to-noise ratio for the various Burst sequences previously proposed and a detailed case study of one of the more promising variants. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Concepts Magn Reson Part A 26A: 11–34, 2005