Koosh ball whole-heart coronary magnetic resonance angiography with zoom imaging without a navigator
Yuki Furukawa1, Takashige Yoshida1, Kouhei Yuda1, Takumi Koyano1, Masami Yoneyama2, Nobuo Kawauchi1, Tetsurou Shirai3, and Atushi Senoo4

1Radiology, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Hospital, Nakano-ku, Japan, 2Phlips Electronics Japan, Minato-ku, Japan, 3Cardiovascular Medicine, Tokyo Metropolitan Police Hospital, Nakano-ku, Japan, 4Division of Radiological Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Arakawa-ku, Japan

Synopsis

We applied a 3D isotropic radial (koosh ball) trajectory WHC-MRA as zoom imaging. Navigation was not conducted; however, imaging was completed using high resolution. Zoom-KB WHC-MRA demonstrated good delineation of both the myocardial wall and coronary arteries. This was obtained without using a phrenic motion correction algorithm. When Zoom-KB WHC-MRA was compared with the reference standard, there was no significant difference (P > 0.05). The Zoom-KB enabled high isotropic spatial resolution with a short scan time. Motion artifact was controlled by equalizing noise. This was a simple, very efficient robust sequence.

Purpose

Three-dimensional whole-heart coronary magnetic resonance angiography (3D-WHC-MRA) can scrutinize the whole heart in one sequence. [1] However, sensitivity to motion, particularly stroke of the heart, and phrenic motion remain major challenges in this field. A patient’s respiratory motion prolongs acquisition time and impacts phrenic navigation, leading to a decline in imaging efficiency. Recently, self-navigated 3D WHCMRA methods have also been proposed for cardiac motion-resolved coronary arteries. [2-4] This way extracted respiratory motion from the echoes acquired for imaging, and the images were corrected in a post-processing step. In addition, self-navigator performs by a radial collection of a golden angle with under-sampling in short scan time. However, an MRI scanner cannot reconstruct an image in real time. Reconstruction takes several hours and requires exclusive use of equipment. Therefore, we applied a 3D isotropic radial [koosh ball (KB)] trajectory WHC-MRA to a "reduced field-of-view" (zoom-imaging) technique. [5-6] Because of zoom imaging takes an image with high resolution in short scan time, and KB trajectory controls motion artifact by equalizing noise. KB trajectory zoom-imaging WHC-MRA (Zoom-KB WHC-MRA) reconstruct an image in real time with an MRI scanner. The purpose of this work is to describe and test respiratory motion-resolved whole-heart imaging using Zoom-KB WHC-MRA with only ECG-gated.

Methods

The protocol was approved by the local ethics committee, and all healthy adult volunteers (n = 6) provided written informed consent. Data were acquired on a clinical MR scanner (Achieva 1.5T X-series3.2, Philips Medical Systems, Best, NL) with 32ch SENSE Cardiac/Torso coil used for signal reception. We took a Zoom-KB WHC-MRA with only ECG-gated. Sequence parameters included the following: TR/TE = 3.6/1.8 ms, radiofrequency (RF) excitation angle = 80°, FOV = 170 mm3, voxel size = 1.33 mm3, matrix size = 1283, data segments = 640, lines per segment = 27, shot duration=100 ms, density of angles = 12%, saturation Pulse, fat suppression = spectral presaturation with inversion recovery (SPIR), scan time =10.42 min (HR60) As a reference standard and for quantitative comparison, a conventional 3D low-high radial (3D-LHR) trajectory with ECG-gated and phrenic navigation. 3D-LHR WHC-MRA sequence parameters included the following: FOV = 300 × 330 × 150 mm), matrix size = 248 × 224, data segments = 357, parallel imaging = 1.5 × 2, and scan time = 5.55 min (HR60), and the phrenic synchronous mean efficiency of imaging time was 11–12 min at 50%–60%. They were compared by visual evaluation (VE) and contrast ratio (CR). CR was calculated by measuring the signal intensities of the right coronary and left anterior descending arteries. All comparisons where done with a paired Student’s t-test. A P value of <0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.

Result

Fig 1 shows the ventricular chambers and coronary arteries at diastole in one representative volunteer. Zoom-KB WHC-MRA provided good delineation of both the myocardial wall and coronary arteries that were obtained without using the phrenic motion correction algorithm. Table 1 summarizes the VE and CR scores. When Zoom-KB WHC-MRA was compared with 3D-LHR WHC-MRA, 3D-LHR WHC-MRA was good; however, there was no significant difference (P > 0.05).

Discussion

Artifacts were not conspicuous when KB trajectory was used with zoom imaging. Because KB trajectory uses RF shape and selective RF lessens the impact in sidelobes from the RF-Pulse. The Zoom-KB enables high isotropic spatial resolution in a short scan time, and motion artifact was controlled by equalizing as a noise in the whole imaging. This was a simple, very efficient robust sequence. Further experiments are required to validate the feasibility of the technique in patients. The method enables high isotropic spatial resolution for visualization of coronary arteries without phrenic navigation.

Acknowledgements

No acknowledgement found.

References

[1] Weber et al. MRM. 2003;50(6):1223-8. [2] Stehning et al. MRM. 2005;53(3):719-23. [3] Bhat et al. MRM. 2011;65(5):1269-77. [4] Piccini et al. MRM. 2012;68(2):571-9. [5] Sam et al. MRM.1994;32(6):778-84. [6] Paul et al. MRM. 2006;55(3):575-82.

Figures

Figure.1 Right coronary artery (RCA) and left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD) reformatted from : (a)(c)Zoom-KB WHC MRA; (b)(d)3D-LHR WFC-MRA.

Figure.2 (a) 3D isotropic radial (koosh ball) trajectory reads the k-sapce to a spiral, and it is a form just like a shell. (b) 3D low-high radial trajectory reads the k-sapce to a radial on y-z planum top, and follows it linearly on a thereafter x planum.

Table.1 Clinical reader’s scores for comparison of Zoom-KB trajectory v.s. 3D-LHR trajectory with visualization/sharpness of RCA and LAD.



Proc. Intl. Soc. Mag. Reson. Med. 24 (2016)
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