Pulmonary perfusion MRI using interleaved variable density sampling and HighlY constrained cartesian reconstruction (HYCR)

PURPOSE: To demonstrate the feasibility of performing single breathhold, noncardiac gated, ultrafast, high spatial-temporal resolution whole chest MR pulmonary perfusion imaging in humans. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Eight subjects (five male, three female) were scanned with the proposed method on a 3 Tesla clinical scanner using a 32-channel phased-array coil. Seven (88%) were healthy volunteers, and one was a patient volunteer with sarcoidosis. The peak lung enhancement phase for each subject was scored for gravitational effect, peak parenchymal enhancement and severity of artifacts by three cardiothoracic radiologists independently. RESULTS: All studies were successfully performed by MR technologists without any additional training. Mean parenchymal signal was very good, measuring 0.78 ± 0.13 (continuous scale, 0 = "none" → 1 = "excellent"). Mean level of motion artifacts was low, measuring 0.13 ± 0.08 (continuous scale, 0 = "none" → 1 = "severe"). CONCLUSION: It is feasible to perform single breathhold, noncardiac gated, ultrafast, high spatial-temporal resolution whole chest MR pulmonary perfusion imaging in humans.