A three‐dimensional free‐breathing sequence for simultaneous myocardial T1 and T2 mapping

Purpose: The aim of this study was to develop, test and validate a 3D free‐breathing technique for simultaneous measurement of native myocardial T 1 and T 2 . Methods: The proposed 3D technique acquires five fat‐suppressed electrocardiogram‐triggered respiratory navigator‐gated spoiled gradient echo volumes in an interleaved manner. Four volumes are prepared using a combination of nonselective saturation and T 2 preparation. One volume is acquired with fully recovered longitudinal magnetization for accuracy during parametric fitting. Performance of the technique was validated through numerical simulations, phantom experiments and in vivo experiments in 15 healthy human subjects. Results: Simulations and phantom experiments show that the measured T 1 and T 2 are largely insensitive to heart rate. In vivo whole‐heart maps with a voxel size of 1.5 × 1.5 × 16 mm 3 were acquired without parallel imaging within ~ 8 min including respiratory gating efficiency. The in vivo parametric maps were homogeneous (coefficients of variation of left ventricle myocardium were 6.0% ± 0.8% and 10.2% ± 3.4% for T 1 and T 2 maps, respectively), with an average T 1 value of 1470 ± 59.2 ms and T 2 value of 41.6 ± 1.8 ms Conclusions: The proposed 3D technique allows for measurement of whole‐heart T 1 and T 2 with preserved accuracy and precision in a single scan.