Self-gated free-breathing 3D coronary CINE imaging with simultaneous water and fat visualization

PLoS One. 2014 Feb 20;9(2):e89315. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0089315. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to develop a novel technique for acquiring 3-dimensional (3D) coronary CINE magnetic resonance images with both water and fat visualization during free breathing and without external respiratory or cardiac gating. The implemented multi-echo hybrid 3D radial balanced Steady-State Free Precession (SSFP) sequence has an efficient data acquisition and is robust against motion. The k-space center along the slice encoding direction was repeatedly acquired to derive both respiratory and cardiac self-gating signals without an increase in scan time, enabling a free-breathing acquisition. The multi-echo acquisition allowed image reconstruction with water-fat separation, providing improved visualization of the coronary artery lumen. Ten healthy subjects were imaged successfully at 1.5 T, achieving a spatial resolution of 1.0 × 1.0 × 3.0 mm(3) and scan time of about 5 minutes. The proposed imaging technique provided coronary vessel depiction comparable to that obtained with conventional breath-hold imaging and navigator gated free-breathing imaging.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms
  • Cardiac-Gated Imaging Techniques / methods*
  • Coronary Vessels*
  • Fats / chemistry*
  • Heart / physiology
  • Humans
  • Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted
  • Imaging, Three-Dimensional / methods*
  • Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Cine / methods*
  • Phantoms, Imaging
  • Respiration*
  • Water / chemistry*

Substances

  • Fats
  • Water