3D LGE imaging of the LV short axis stack using spiral readouts at 3T

Abstract

Background Clinical assessment of the viability of myocardium is commonly performed using 2D breath-hold late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) imaging with Cartesian k-space coverage and data acquisition windows (AWs) ranging from 140-200 ms. More efficient k-space coverage using spiral trajectories could allow improved spatial resolution and reduced AWs without greatly extending acquisition durations. To this end, we have developed a navigator-gated spiral 3D LGE sequence and present the results in 10 patients attending for clinical 2D LGE imaging on a 3T Siemens Skyra scanner. Methods The navigator-gated 3D sequence consisted of a stack of spirals (acquired: 8 kz at 1.4 × 1.4 × 10 mm, reconstructed: 16 slices at 0.7 × 0.7 × 5 mm). Each spiral readout was 10 ms long with 16 interleaves required to fill kx-ky space. All 8 kz for a given spiral interleaf were acquired in a single cardiac cycle (AW = 88 ms). Acquisition duration was 34 cardiac cycles assuming 100% respiratory efficiency (alternate R-wave gating). 3D imaging was performed after the acquisition of a stack of conventional clinical breathhold 2D LGE images in 10 patients (acquired resolution: 1.4 × 1.8 mm reconstructed to 0.7 × 0.7 mm). The 2D