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Prospective heart tracking for whole‐heart magnetic resonance angiography
Author(s) -
Moghari Mehdi H.,
Geva Tal,
Powell Andrew J.
Publication year - 2017
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.26117
Subject(s) - magnetic resonance angiography , magnetic resonance imaging , medicine , angiography , cardiac magnetic resonance , nuclear magnetic resonance , cardiology , radiology , physics
Purpose To develop a prospective respiratory‐gating technique (Heart‐NAV) for use with contrast‐enhanced three‐dimensional (3D) inversion recovery (IR) whole‐heart magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) acquisitions that directly tracks heart motion without creating image inflow artifact. Methods With Heart‐NAV, one of the startup pulses for the whole‐heart steady‐state free precession MRA sequence is used to collect the centerline of k‐space, and its one‐dimensional reconstruction is fed into the standard diaphragm‐navigator (NAV) signal analysis process to prospectively gate and track respiratory‐induced heart displacement. Ten healthy volunteers underwent non‐contrast whole‐heart MRA acquisitions using the conventional diaphragm‐NAV and Heart‐NAV with 5 and 10‐mm acceptance windows in a 1.5T scanner. Five patients underwent contrast‐enhanced IR whole‐heart MRA using a diaphragm‐NAV and Heart‐NAV with a 5‐mm acceptance window. Results For non‐contrast whole‐heart MRA with both the 5 and 10‐mm acceptance windows, Heart‐NAV yielded coronary artery vessel sharpness and subjective visual scores that were not significantly different than those using a conventional diaphragm‐NAV. Scan time for Heart‐NAV was 10% shorter ( p < 0.05). In patients undergoing contrast‐enhanced IR whole‐heart MRA, inflow artifact was seen with the diaphragm‐NAV but not with Heart‐NAV. Conclusion Compared with a conventional diaphragm‐NAV, Heart‐NAV achieves similar image quality in a slightly shorter scan time and eliminates inflow artifact. Magn Reson Med 77:759–765, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine