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In vivo diffusion‐tensor MRI of the human heart on a 3 tesla clinical scanner: An optimized second order (M2) motion compensated diffusion‐preparation approach
Author(s) -
Nguyen Christopher,
Fan Zhaoyang,
Xie Yibin,
Pang Jianing,
Speier Peter,
Bi Xiaoming,
Kobashigawa Jon,
Li Debiao
Publication year - 2016
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.26380
Subject(s) - diffusion mri , nuclear magnetic resonance , reproducibility , fractional anisotropy , nuclear medicine , scanner , diffusion , endocardium , chemistry , analytical chemistry (journal) , physics , medicine , magnetic resonance imaging , cardiology , radiology , optics , chromatography , thermodynamics
Purpose To optimize a diffusion‐prepared balanced steady‐state free precession cardiac MRI (CMR) technique to perform diffusion‐tensor CMR (DT‐CMR) in humans on a 3 Tesla clinical scanner Methods A previously developed second order motion compensated (M2) diffusion‐preparation scheme was significantly shortened (40%) yielding sufficient signal‐to‐noise ratio for DT‐CMR imaging. In 20 healthy volunteers and 3 heart failure (HF) patients, DT‐CMR was performed comparing no motion compensation (M0), first order motion compensation (M1), and the optimized M2. Mean diffusivity (MD), fractional anisotropy (FA), helix angle (HA), and HA transmural slope (HATS) were calculated. Reproducibility and success rate (SR) were investigated. Results M2‐derived left ventricular (LV) MD, FA, and HATS (1.4 ± 0.2 μm 2 /ms, 0.28 ± 0.06, −1.0 ± 0.2 °/%trans) were significantly ( P < 0.001) less than M1 (1.8 ± 0.3 μm 2 /ms, 0.46 ± 0.14, −0.1 ± 0.3 °/%trans) and M0 (4.8 ± 1.0 μm 2 /ms, 0.70 ± 0.14, 0.1 ± 0.3 °/%trans) indicating less motion corruption and yielding values more consistent with previous literature. M2‐derived DT‐CMR parameters had higher reproducible (ICC > 0.85) and SR (82%) than M1 (ICC = 0.20–0.85; SR = 37%) and M0 (ICC = 0.20–0.30; SR = 11%). M2 DT‐CMR was able to yield HA maps with smooth transmural transition from endocardium to epicardium. Conclusion The proposed M2 DT‐CMR reproducibly yielded bulk motion robust estimations of mean LV MD, FA, HA, and HATS on a 3T clinical scanner. Magn Reson Med 76:1354–1363, 2016. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine