Artifact reduction with a wideband late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) MRI technique for patients with implanted cardiac devices: a two-center study

Shams Rashid,Peng Hu,Roderick H Tung,Yuchi Han,Kalyanam Shivkumar,Stanislas Rapacchi,Harold Litt,Adam Plotnik,J Paul Finn

doi:10.1186/1532-429x-16-s1-o29

Abstract

Background Late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) cardiac MRI is the clinical gold standard for non-invasive characterization of myocardial scar [1]. However, up to 75% of patients who may benefit from LGE MRI have preexisting implanted cardiac devices such as implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) and pacemakers (PM) [2]. The presence of an ICD produces hyper-intensity (HI) image artifacts in LGE (Figure 1) and can prevent assessment of myocardial scar. We recently proposed a wideband LGE MRI technique that removes these artifacts in ICD patients [3,4]. In this abstract, we present our two-center experience of using this wideband LGE sequence on a cohort of patients with ICDs who were referred to cardiac MRI.

Highlights

Late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) cardiac MRI is the clinical gold standard for non-invasive characterization of myocardial scar [1]
No HI artifacts were present in the conventional LGE images of the 3 PM patients included in the study, as well as 2 implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) patients owing to large distance of the ICD from the heart
In the remaining 20 ICD patients, HI artifacts were present in 5.6 ± 2.4 segments per patient in the conventional LGE images

Summary

Background

Late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) cardiac MRI is the clinical gold standard for non-invasive characterization of myocardial scar [1]. Up to 75% of patients who may benefit from LGE MRI have preexisting implanted cardiac devices such as implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICD) and pacemakers (PM) [2]. The presence of an ICD produces hyper-intensity (HI) image artifacts in LGE (Figure 1) and can prevent assessment of myocardial scar. We recently proposed a wideband LGE MRI technique that removes these artifacts in ICD patients [3,4]. In this abstract, we present our two-center experience of using this wideband LGE sequence on a cohort of patients with ICDs who were referred to cardiac MRI

Methods

Results

Conclusions