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Self‐gated golden angle spiral cine MRI for coronary endothelial function assessment
Author(s) -
Bonanno Gabriele,
Hays Allison G.,
Weiss Robert G.,
Schär Michael
Publication year - 2018
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.27060
Subject(s) - medicine , spiral (railway) , gating , cardiology , nuclear medicine , coronary artery disease , coronary arteries , coronary heart disease , artery , mathematics , physiology , mathematical analysis
Purpose Depressed coronary endothelial function (CEF) is a marker for atherosclerotic disease, an independent predictor of cardiovascular events, and can be quantified non‐invasively with ECG‐triggered spiral cine MRI combined with isometric handgrip exercise (IHE). However, MRI‐CEF measures can be hindered by faulty ECG‐triggering, leading to prolonged breath‐holds and degraded image quality. Here, a self‐gated golden angle spiral method (SG‐GA) is proposed to eliminate the need for ECG during cine MRI. Methods SG‐GA was tested against retrospectively ECG‐gated golden angle spiral MRI (ECG‐GA) and gold‐standard ECG‐triggered spiral cine MRI (ECG‐STD) in 10 healthy volunteers. CEF data were obtained from cross‐sectional images of the proximal right and left coronary arteries in a 3T scanner. Self‐gating heart rates were compared to those from simultaneous ECG‐gating. Coronary vessel sharpness and cross‐sectional area (CSA) change with IHE were compared among the 3 methods. Results Self‐gating precision, accuracy, and correlation‐coefficient were 7.7 ± 0.5 ms, 9.1 ± 0.7 ms, and 0.93 ± 0.01, respectively (mean ± standard error). Vessel sharpness by SG‐GA was equal or higher than ECG‐STD (rest: 63.0 ± 1.7% vs. 61.3 ± 1.3%; exercise: 62.6 ± 1.3% vs. 56.7 ± 1.6%, P < 0.05). CSA changes were in agreement among the 3 methods (ECG‐STD = 8.7 ± 4.0%, ECG‐GA = 9.6 ± 3.1%, SG‐GA = 9.1 ± 3.5%, P = not significant). Conclusion CEF measures can be obtained with the proposed self‐gated high‐quality cine MRI method even when ECG is faulty or not available. Magn Reson Med 80:560–570, 2018. © 2017 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.