Free-breathing, nongated real-time delayed enhancement MRI of myocardial infarcts: A comparison with conventional delayed enhancement

✍ Scribed by Jay S. Detsky; John J. Graham; Ram Vijayaraghavan; Labonny Biswas; Jeffrey A. Stainsby; Michael A. Guttman; Graham A. Wright; Alexander J. Dick

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 315 KB
• Volume: 28
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1053-1807
• DOI: 10.1002/jmri.21505

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

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. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2008;28:621–625. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.