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High‐resolution variable‐density 3D cones coronary MRA
Author(s) -
Addy Nii Okai,
Ingle R. Reeve,
Wu Holden H.,
Hu Bob S.,
Nishimura Dwight G.
Publication year - 2015
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.25803
Subject(s) - undersampling , image resolution , coronary arteries , temporal resolution , trajectory , spiral (railway) , iterative reconstruction , 3d reconstruction , computer science , nuclear medicine , artificial intelligence , physics , medicine , mathematics , optics , artery , mathematical analysis , astronomy , surgery
Purpose To improve the spatial/temporal resolution of whole‐heart coronary MR angiography by developing a variable‐density (VD) 3D cones acquisition suitable for image reconstruction with parallel imaging and compressed sensing techniques. Methods A VD 3D cones trajectory design incorporates both radial and spiral trajectory undersampling techniques to achieve higher resolution. This design is used to generate a VD 3D cones trajectory with 0.8 mm/66 ms isotropic spatial/temporal resolution, using a similar number of readouts as our previous fully sampled cones trajectory (1.2 mm/100 ms). Scans of volunteers and patients are performed to evaluate the performance of the VD trajectory, using non‐Cartesian L 1 ‐ESPIRiT for high‐resolution image reconstruction. Results With gridding reconstruction, the high‐resolution scans experience an expected drop in signal‐to‐noise and contrast‐to‐noise ratios, but with L 1 ‐ESPIRiT, the apparent noise is substantially reduced. Compared with 1.2 mm images, in each volunteer, the L 1 ‐ESPIRiT 0.8 mm images exhibit higher vessel sharpness values in the right and left anterior descending arteries. Conclusion Coronary MR angiography with isotropic submillimeter spatial resolution and high temporal resolution can be performed with VD 3D cones to improve the depiction of coronary arteries. Magn Reson Med 74:614–621, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.