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
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