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Volumetric late gadolinium‐enhanced myocardial imaging with retrospective inversion time selection
Author(s) -
Kecskemeti Steve,
Johnson Kevin,
François Christopher J.,
Schiebler Mark L.,
Unal Orhan
Publication year - 2013
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.24037
Subject(s) - magnetic resonance imaging , real time mri , image quality , nuclear medicine , computer science , k space , medicine , biomedical engineering , radiology , computer vision , image (mathematics)
Purpose To develop and validate a novel free‐breathing 3D radial late gadolinium‐enhanced magnetic resonance imaging technique (3D LGE‐MRI) with isotropic resolution and retrospective inversion time (TI) selection for myocardial viability imaging. Materials and Methods The 3D radial LGE‐MRI method featuring an interleaved and bit‐reversed radial k ‐space trajectory was evaluated in 12 subjects that also had clinical breath‐hold Cartesian 2D LGE‐MRI. The 3D LGE‐MRI acquisition requires a predicted TI and a user‐controlled data acquisition window that determines the sampling width around the predicted TI. Sliding window reconstructions with update rates of 1× the repetition time (TR) allow for a user selectable TI to obtain the maximum nulling of the myocardium. The retrospective nature of the acquisition allows the user to choose from a range of possible TI times centered on the expected TI. Those projections most corrupted by respiratory motion, as determined by a respiratory bellows signal, were resampled according to the diminishing variance algorithm. The quality of the left ventricular myocardial nulling on the 3D LGE‐MRI and 2D LGE‐MRI was assessed using a 4‐point Likert scale by two experienced radiologists. Comparison of image quality scores for the two methods was performed using generalized estimating equations. Results All 3D LGE‐MRI cases produced similar nulling of myocardial signal as the 2D LGE‐MRI. The image quality of myocardial nulling was not significantly different between the two acquisitions (mean nulling of 3.4 for 2D vs. 3.1 for 3D, and P = 0.0645). The average absolute deviation from mean scores was also not determined to be statistically significant (1.8 for 2D and 0.4 for 3D and P = 0.1673). Total acquisition time was ∼9 minutes for 3D LGE‐MRI with voxel sizes ranging from 1.6 3 to 2.0 3 mm 3 . Conversely, the total imaging time was twice as long for the 2D DCE‐MRI (>17 minutes) with an eight times larger voxel size of 1.4 × 2.2 × 7.0 mm. Conclusion The 3D LGE‐MRI technique demonstrated in this study is a promising alternative for the assessment of myocardial viability in patients who have difficulty sustaining breath‐holds for the clinical standard 2D LGE‐MRI. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2013;38:1276–1282. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.