Free-breathing mapping of stress/rest myocardial T1 reactivity with Ferumoxytol-enhanced imaging using a widely available sequence

Myocardial T1 reactivity, defined as the relative T1 change from rest to stress, has been proposed as a marker for detection of ischemic heart disease. Commonly used MOLLI T1 mapping is sensitive to B0 field inhomogeneities and can have susceptibility/banding artifacts because of bSSFP readouts, especially at 3T. In this study, we investigated the feasibility of free-breathing SR-FLASH T1 mapping for ferumoxytol-enhanced (FE) dobutamine-stress T1 reactivity studies at 3T in preclinical settings. We showed the feasibility of using a widely available perfusion sequence for T1 reactivity studies under Ferumoxytol-enhancement.