Cardiac Cine MRI at 3.0 Tesla: Comparison of Image Quality between SSFP and FLASH Sequence

This study compared steady-state free precession (SSFP) with Fast Low Angle Shot (FLASH) at 3.0 T cardiac Cine MRI with respect to contrast to noise ratio (CNR) and visual image quality assessment. All images were acquired on a 3.0-T Siemens MAGNETOM trio. Seven healthy volunteers (all males, mean age 32.5 ± 7.1 years) underwent magnetic resonance imaging using SSFP and FLASH sequence on the same day. For both SSFP and FLASH imaging, 8-mm thick short axis and long axis views were acquired with equal matrix size (192 × 192). CNR calculations were performed on the short axis images acquired at end systole time points. Three radiologists independently assessed image quality. SSFP images were superior to FLASH images with respect to CNR (SSFP: 7.14 ± 2.16, FLASH: 3.57 ± 1.83, P < 0.001). In image quality, SSFP images were superior to FLASH in both short and long axis views (P < 0.01). Although SSFP images contained dark blood artifacts in 3 cases, these images were improved by frequency offset. SSFP sequences provided higher quality images than FLASH sequences, and would be available for cardiac cine MRI at 3.0 T.