Abstract
PurposeTo develop an accelerated motion corrected 3D whole‐heart imaging approach (qBOOST‐T2) for simultaneous high‐resolution bright‐ and black‐blood cardiac MR imaging and quantitative myocardial T2 characterization.MethodsThree undersampled interleaved balanced steady‐state free precession cardiac MR volumes were acquired with a variable density Cartesian trajectory and different magnetization preparations: (1) T2‐prepared inversion recovery (T2prep‐IR), (2) T2‐preparation, and (3) no preparation. Image navigators were acquired prior the acquisition to correct for 2D translational respiratory motion. Each 3D volume was reconstructed with a low‐rank patch‐based reconstruction. The T2prep‐IR volume provides bright‐blood anatomy visualization, the black‐blood volume is obtained by means of phase sensitive reconstruction between first and third datasets, and T2 maps are generated by matching the signal evolution to a simulated dictionary. The proposed sequence has been evaluated in simulations, phantom experiments, 11 healthy subjects and compared with 3D bright‐blood cardiac MR and standard 2D breath‐hold balanced steady‐state free precession T2 mapping. The feasibility of the proposed approach was tested on 4 patients with suspected cardiovascular disease.ResultsHigh linear correlation (y = 1.09 × −0.83, R2 = 0.99) was found between the proposed qBOOST‐T2 and T2 spin echo measurements in phantom experiment. Good image quality was observed in vivo with the proposed 4x undersampled qBOOST‐T2. Mean T2 values of 53.1 ± 2.1 ms and 55.8 ± 2.7 ms were measured in vivo for 2D balanced steady‐state free precession T2 mapping and qBOOST‐T2, respectively, with linear correlation of y = 1.02x+1.46 (R2 = 0.61) and T2 bias = 2.7 ms.ConclusionThe proposed qBOOST‐T2 sequence allows the acquisition of 3D high‐resolution co‐registered bright‐ and black‐blood volumes and T2 maps in a single scan of ~11 min, showing promising results in terms of T2 quantification.
Highlights
Cardiac MR (CMR) is a powerful tool for the assessment of a wide range of pathologies such as congenital heart disease, coronary artery disease, myocardial inflammation and edema.[1,2,3] several CMR sequences with different acquisition planning and geometries are needed to assess these pathologies
A better agreement in T2 quantification was found between qBOOST‐T2 and Spin echo (SE) with linear correlation y = 1.09x – 1.67 (R2 = 0.99); overestimation of long T2 values was observed
A variation of 3.2% and 3.8% was observed, respectively, for T2 values that correspond to healthy myocardium T2myoc = 52 ms and diseased myocardium T2myoc‐diseased = 65 ms, whereas a variation of 8.6% was observed for a long T2 = 115 ms
Summary
Cardiac MR (CMR) is a powerful tool for the assessment of a wide range of pathologies such as congenital heart disease, coronary artery disease, myocardial inflammation and edema.[1,2,3] several CMR sequences with different acquisition planning and geometries are needed to assess these pathologies. Bright‐blood CMR angiography (CMRA) for coronary and whole heart anatomy visualization is conventionally performed free‐breathing with 1D diaphragmatic navigator (dNAV) gating.[11] thrombus/hemorrhage visualization is typically performed with a 3D free‐breathing noncontrast enhanced black‐blood T1‐weighted inversion recovery (IR) technique[5] with 1D dNAV. To enable shorter and more predictable scan times several self‐gating techniques have been proposed to directly track and correct for the respiratory motion of the heart.[12,13,14,15,16,17,18] Conventional cardiac T2 maps are acquired with T2 prepared balanced steady‐state free precession (bSSFP) in 2D short‐axis views, under several breath‐holds, requiring patient cooperation and expert planning. High‐resolution free breathing 3D T2 mapping of the heart has been demonstrated using 1D dNAV but leads to long and unpredictable scan times,[20] hindering the acquisition of high isotropic resolution images. Acquisition time (TA) remains a challenge with this approach because a heart beat is necessary between acquisitions to allow magnetization recovery
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