The interleaved T2prep-IR sequence significantly improved myocardium-to-blood contrast-to-noise ratio to 28.4 compared to 15.4 for iT2prep and 15.3 for DIR techniques.
Does the iT2prep-IR MRI sequence improve blood nulling and wall visualization compared to DIR and iT2prep in healthy subjects and congenital heart disease patients?
The proposed interleaved T2prep-IR sequence enables simultaneous lumen and wall visualization of cardiac structures with improved blood nulling and contrast compared to conventional techniques.
Absolute Event Rate: 28.4% vs 15.4%
p-value: p=<0.05
Purpose To develop a motion‐corrected 3D flow‐insensitive imaging approach interleaved T 2 prepared‐inversion recovery (iT 2 prep‐IR) for simultaneous lumen and wall visualization of the great thoracic vessels and cardiac structures. Methods A 3D flow‐insensitive approach for simultaneous cardiovascular lumen and wall visualization (iT 2 prep) has been previously proposed. This approach requires subject‐dependent weighted subtraction to completely null the arterial blood signal in the black‐blood volume. Here, we propose an (T 2 prep‐IR) approach to improve wall visualization and remove need for weighted subtraction. The proposed sequence is based on the acquisition and direct subtraction of 2 interleaved 3D whole‐heart data sets acquired with and without T 2 prep‐IR preparation. Image navigators are acquired before data acquisition to enable 2D translational and 3D non‐rigid motion correction allowing 100% respiratory scan efficiency. The proposed approach was evaluated in 10 healthy subjects and compared with the conventional 2D double inversion recovery (DIR) sequence and the 3D iT 2 prep sequence. Additionally, 5 patients with congenital heart disease were acquired to test the clinical feasibility of the proposed approach. Results The proposed iT 2 prep‐IR sequence showed improved blood nulling compared to both DIR and iT 2 prep techniques in terms of SNR (SNR blood = 6.9, 12.2, and 18.2, respectively) and contrast‐to‐noise‐ratio (CNR myoc‐blood = 28.4, 15.4, and 15.3, respectively). No statistical difference was observed between iT 2 prep‐IR, iT 2 prep and DIR atrial and ventricular wall thickness quantification. Conclusion The proposed interleaved T 2 prep‐IR sequence enables the simultaneous lumen and wall visualization of cardiac structures and shows promising results in terms of SNR, CNR, and wall thickness measurement.
Milotta et al. (Thu,) conducted a other in Healthy and congenital heart disease (n=15). Interleaved T2prep-IR sequence vs. iT2prep and DIR sequences was evaluated on Myocardium-to-blood contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) (p=<0.05). The interleaved T2prep-IR sequence significantly improved myocardium-to-blood contrast-to-noise ratio to 28.4 compared to 15.4 for iT2prep and 15.3 for DIR techniques.