High resolution synthetic late gadolinium enhancement based on accelerated post-contrast T1 mapping

Motivation: Late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) cardiac MRI is the non-invasive gold standard for detecting myocardial scars and fibrosis. However, it has limitations, including incomplete myocardial nulling and sensitivity to motion. Goal(s): To develop a high-resolution synthetic LGE method based on accelerated post-contrast T1 mapping to address these limitations. Approach: We compared the proposed method with regular-resolution synthetic LGE and conventional LGE in a cohort of 50 patients with suspected cardiomyopathy. Results: The proposed method reduces artifacts, enhances myocardial nulling, improves overall image quality, and achieves an accuracy for assessing myocardial scar comparable to that of conventional LGE. Impact: The proposed method can achieve a similar accuracy in assessing myocardial scar relative to conventional LGE, while offering superior image quality, improved myocardial nulling, and an ability to simultaneously detect focal and diffuse fibrosis.