Self-gated PROPELLER-encoded cine cardiac imaging

Abstract

This study uses the k-space center over-sampling property of PROPELLER encoding to detect cardiac and respiratory motion using raw k-space data. Using the motion information, cine cardiac imaging is self-gated. The data acquisition process requires neither electrocardiography triggering nor patient breath-holding. Using physiology motion information, this post-processing method rearranges the k-space data into groups corresponding to cardiac and respiratory phases. The PROPELLER blades of the same groups are combined to produce cine high-resolution images. This approach reduces the potential discrepancy of the k-space data and the motion-related artifacts in the reconstructed image because all blades in a group are acquired at consistent cardiac and respiratory phases. The study concludes that self-gated cine cardiac imaging is feasible using PROPELLER encoding. It is a potentially practical tool for cine cardiac imaging.