Single breath-hold saturation recovery 3D cardiac T1 mapping via compressed SENSE at 3T

Tiago Ferreira Da Silva,Gonzalo Javier López-Martín,Javier Sanchez-Gonzalez,Carlos Galan-Arriola,Borja Ibáñez,Paula Montesinos,Valentín Fuster,Manuel Desco

doi:10.1007/s10334-020-00848-2

Abstract

ObjectivesTo propose and validate a novel imaging sequence that uses a single breath-hold whole-heart 3D T1 saturation recovery compressed SENSE rapid acquisition (SACORA) at 3T.MethodsThe proposed sequence combines flexible saturation time sampling, compressed SENSE, and sharing of saturation pulses between two readouts acquired at different RR intervals. The sequence was compared with a 3D saturation recovery single-shot acquisition (SASHA) implementation with phantom and in vivo experiments (pre and post contrast; 7 pigs) and was validated against the reference inversion recovery spin echo (IR-SE) sequence in phantom experiments.ResultsPhantom experiments showed that the T1 maps acquired by 3D SACORA and 3D SASHA agree well with IR-SE. In vivo experiments showed that the pre-contrast and post-contrast T1 maps acquired by 3D SACORA are comparable to the corresponding 3D SASHA maps, despite the shorter acquisition time (15s vs. 188s, for a heart rate of 60 bpm). Mean septal pre-contrast T1 was 1453 ± 44 ms with 3D SACORA and 1460 ± 60 ms with 3D SASHA. Mean septal post-contrast T1 was 824 ± 66 ms and 824 ± 60 ms.Conclusion3D SACORA acquires 3D T1 maps in 15 heart beats (heart rate, 60 bpm) at 3T. In addition to its short acquisition time, the sequence achieves good T1 estimation precision and accuracy.

Highlights

Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) is a medical imaging modality whose wide applications include tissue characterization across different physiological and pathological conditions
We propose and validate the 3D saturation recovery compressed SENSE rapid acquisition (3D SACORA) imaging sequence, a new 3D T1 spoiled saturation recovery mapping technique for acquisition of the entire left ventricle (LV) in a single breath-hold at 3T
The Bland–Altman plots in Fig. 2 compare reference T1s with T1s estimated by 3D SACORA and 3D SASHA

Summary

Introduction

Cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) is a medical imaging modality whose wide applications include tissue characterization across different physiological and pathological conditions. CMR T1 mapping is complex due to the heart’s motion, and several two-dimensional (2D) pulse sequences have been presented in recent years to tackle the problem [7,8,9] These sequences are designed to acquire only a single slice per breath-hold. MOLLI is precise and reproducible; it underestimates T1, mainly due to the magnetization transfer effect and imperfect inversion efficiency [8] To overcome this limitation, saturation recovery single-shot acquisition (SASHA) replaces the inversion pulses with saturation pulses, avoiding the underestimation of T1 values due to incomplete recovery of the signal after the inversion pulse [5]. Saturation pulse-prepared heart rate independent inversion recovery (SAPPHIRE) is a hybrid approach that uses inversion and saturation pulses and sits at the midpoint between the advantages and limitations of saturation and inversion schemes [6]

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