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Compensation of signal loss due to cardiac motion in point‐resolved spectroscopy of the heart
Author(s) -
Weiss Kilian,
Summermatter Severin,
Stoeck Christian T.,
Kozerke Sebastian
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
magnetic resonance in medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.696
H-Index - 225
eISSN - 1522-2594
pISSN - 0740-3194
DOI - 10.1002/mrm.25028
Subject(s) - spectroscopy , signal (programming language) , sequence (biology) , nuclear magnetic resonance , chemistry , physics , materials science , computer science , mathematics , biochemistry , quantum mechanics , programming language
Purpose To study the influence of cardiac motion on point‐resolved single voxel spectroscopy (PRESS) of the human heart and to propose an improved sequence design to compensate for cardiac motion–related signal losses. Methods Numerical simulations and in vivo measurements were performed to study motion effects in cardiac spectroscopy. Based on the findings, an improved PRESS sequence with reduced free induction decay spoiling areas was implemented. Myocardial triglyceride (TG) content as estimated with the improved PRESS sequence was compared with the default PRESS sequence commonly used for spectroscopy in nonmoving tissues that was provided by the manufacturer. Results Numerical simulations and in vivo data show the importance of optimal trigger delays to avoid signal losses in cardiac spectroscopy. The improved PRESS sequence was found to yield a significantly reduced sensitivity to cardiac motion and trigger delay setting and provided a 1.7‐fold increase in signal‐to‐noise ratio on average compared with the default PRESS sequence. Intrasubject variation of myocardial TG content was reduced with the improved sequence compared with the default PRESS sequence (coefficient of variation: 0.11 ± 0.03 versus 0.23 ± 0.06). Conclusion Improvement of the sequence design is essential to reduce the sensitivity of PRESS to cardiac motion. Magn Reson Med 72:1201–1207, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.