Purpose: To compare a free-breathing, nongated, and black-blood real-time delayed enhancement (RT-DE) sequence to the conventional inversion recovery gradient echo (IR-GRE) sequence for delayed enhancement MRI.
Materials and methods: Twenty-three patients with suspected myocardial infarct (MI) were examined using both the IR-GRE and RT-DE imaging sequences. The sensitivity and specificity of RT-DE for detecting MI, using IR-GRE as the gold standard, was determined. The contrast-to-noise ratios (CNR) between the two techniques were also compared.
Results: RT-DE had a high sensitivity and specificity (94% and 98%, respectively) for identifying MI. The total acquisition time to image the entire left ventricle was significantly shorter using RT-DE than IR-GRE (5.6+/-0.9 versus 11.5+/-1.9 min). RT-DE had a slightly lower infarct-myocardium CNR but a higher infarct-blood CNR than IR-GRE imaging. Compared with IR-GRE, RT-DE accurately measured total infarct sizes.
Conclusion: RT-DE can be used for delayed enhancement imaging during free-breathing and without cardiac gating.
Copyright (c) 2008 Wiley-Liss, Inc.