Segmented K-space cine breath-hold cardiovascular MR imaging: Part 1. Principles and technique.

Abstract

Several well-established MR techniques are routinely used for evaluation of the heart and great vessels. Tl-weighted spin-echo images gated to the cardiac cycle provide black-blood images of the heart and vessels. Spin-echo images provide good anatomic detail, but imaging times are relatively long (approximately 5–7 min, depending on the heart rate). In addition, the images are static: only a single cardiac phase is typically acquired during this interval to avoid excessively long imaging times. Cine image acquisition often provides essential information about the cardiac chambers and flowing blood—information complementatary to the anatomic information provided on T1-weighted spin-echo images. A cine sequence of the heart consists of multiple static images that are rapidly displayed in a continuous loop. Most often, gradient-recalled echo pulse sequences are used to provide bright-blood cine images of the heart and vessels. Standard gradient-recalled echo sequences require 3–5 min to produce a cine acquisition of one to four image slices using either retrospective on prospective cardiac gating [1]. Segmented K-space cardiac sequences were described by Atkinson and Edelman [2] and allow 12–18 phases of the cardiac cycle (referred to later in this article as movie frames of a cine sequence) to be acquired in a single breath-hold using prospective cardiac gating. Segmented K-space acquisitions have been used extensively in research protocols—for example, in conjunction with MR tagging techniques [3]—although they have been less frequently used in clinical studies [4]. Commercial implementations of the pulse sequence are becoming more widely available. This essay reviews segmented K-space acquisition and illustrates different modes of application of this method for rapidly obtaining cardiac cine sequences.