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Free‐breathing imaging of the heart using 2D cine‐GRICS (generalized reconstruction by inversion of coupled systems) with assessment of ventricular volumes and function
Author(s) -
Vuissoz PierreAndré,
Odille Freddy,
Fernandez Brice,
Lohezic Maelene,
Benhadid Adnane,
Mandry Damien,
Felblinger Jacques
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
journal of magnetic resonance imaging
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.563
H-Index - 160
eISSN - 1522-2586
pISSN - 1053-1807
DOI - 10.1002/jmri.22818
Subject(s) - steady state free precession imaging , ventricle , breathing , magnetic resonance imaging , medicine , contouring , nuclear medicine , computer science , biomedical engineering , cardiology , radiology , anatomy , computer graphics (images)
Purpose: To assess cardiac function by means of a novel free‐breathing cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) strategy. Materials and Methods: A stack of ungated 2D steady‐state free precession (SSFP) slices was acquired during free breathing and reconstructed as cardiac cine imaging based on the generalized reconstruction by inversion of coupled systems (GRICS). A motion‐compensated sliding window approach allows reconstructing cine movies with most motion artifacts cancelled. The proposed reconstruction uses prior knowledge from respiratory belts and electrocardiogram recordings and features a piecewise linear model that relates the electrocardiogram signal to cardiac displacements. The free‐breathing protocol was validated in six subjects against a standard breath‐held protocol. Results: Image sharpness, as assessed by the image gradient entropy, was comparable to that of breath‐held images and significantly better than in uncorrected images. Volumetric parameters of cardiac function in the left ventricle (LV) and right ventricle (RV) were similar, including end‐systolic volumes, end‐diastolic volumes and mass, stroke volumes, and ejection fractions (with differences of 3% ± 2.4 in the LV and 2.9% ± 4.4 in the RV). The duration of the free‐breathing protocol was nearly the same as the breath‐held protocol. Conclusion: Free‐breathing cine‐GRICS enables accurate assessment of volumetric parameters of cardiac function with efficient correction of motion. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2012;340‐351. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.