PURPOSE: To suppress off-resonance artifacts in coronary artery imaging at 3 Tesla (T), and therefore improve spatial resolution. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Wideband steady state free precession (SSFP) sequences use an oscillating steady state to reduce banding artifacts. Coronary artery images were obtained at 3T using three-dimensional navigated gradient echo, balanced SSFP, and wideband SSFP sequences. RESULTS: The highest in-plane resolution of left coronary artery images was 0.68 mm in the frequency-encoding direction. Wideband SSFP produced an average SNR efficiency of 70% relative to conventional balanced SSFP and suppressed off-resonance artifacts. CONCLUSION: Wideband SSFP was found to be a promising approach for obtaining noncontrast, high-resolution coronary artery images at 3 Tesla with reliable image quality.
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Lee et al. (2010) studied this question.