System and method to combine different multi-echo images

A magnetic resonance scanner, comprising:

• a main magnet configured to generate a volume of magnetic field, the main magnet including a bore area sized to accommodate at least a body part of a subject;
• a radio frequency (RF) coil assembly configured to irradiate the body part of the subject in the magnet;
• a gradient coil assembly configured to generate gradient pulses that provide perturbations to the volume of magnetic field such that MR signals are emitted from the body part and are subsequently acquired by the coil assembly;
• and
• a control unit in communication with the gradient coils and the coil assembly and configured to drive the RF coil assembly and the gradient coil assembly, and perform operations of:
• acquiring the magnetic resonance (MR) signals from the body part of the subject placed in the magnet, wherein the MR signals are in response to radio frequency (RF) irradiation of the subject using a multi-echo MR imaging sequence;
• obtaining a set of MR images based on the acquired MR signals wherein each image corresponds to a respective echo of the multi-echo MR imaging sequence;
• and
• geometrically combining at least two MR images from the set of MR images such that a combined image is generated with a first metric of signal-to-noise ratio and a second metric of contrast ratio both improved as compared to the first and second metric of each of the at least two MR images, wherein said geometrically combining comprises:
• generating an inverse representation for each of the at least two MR images;
• and
• summing respective inverse representations of the at least two MR images.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising software instructions which, when executed by one or more computer processors, cause the one or more computer processors to perform operations of:

• accessing magnetic resonance (MR) signals from a subject placed in a magnet of a MR scanner, wherein the MR signals are in response to radio frequency (RF) irradiation of the subject using a multi-echo MR imaging sequence;
• obtaining a set of MR images from the MR signals wherein each image corresponds to a respective echo of the multi-echo MR imaging sequence;
• and
• geometrically combining at least two MR image from the set of MR images such that a combined image is generated with a first metric of signal-to-noise ratio and a second metric of contrast ratio both improved when compared to the first metric and the second metric of each of the at least two MR images, wherein said geometrically combining comprises:
• generating an inverse representation for each of the at least two MR images;
• and
• summing respective inverse representations of the at least two MR images.