Improved artery delineation in dual-stack coronary magnetic resonance angiography using parallel imaging at 3 T

✍ Scribed by Michael E. Huber; Sebastian Kozerke; Peter Boesiger

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 675 KB
• Volume: 21
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1053-1807
• DOI: 10.1002/jmri.20277

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Purpose

To improve vessel sharpness and T2 preparation (T2Prep) in dual‐stack three‐dimensional coronary magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) by shortening the time delays between the magnetization preparation pulses and the imaging stacks using sensitivity encoding (SENSE) at 3 T.

Materials and Methods

By combining dual‐stack three‐dimensional coronary MRA with the parallel imaging technique SENSE at 3 T, the acquisition duration of each three‐dimensional imaging stack was shortened by a factor of 2. The proposed technique was implemented and tested in experiments with a moving phantom and in measurements on six healthy volunteers.

Results

The time delay between the navigator, T2Prep, and second imaging stack was reduced by 37%, relative to conventional dual‐stack angiography without parallel imaging. This enabled the achievement of comparable high‐vessel sharpness values for the left and the right coronary arteries relative to values known from conventional single‐stack three‐dimensional coronary MRA at 3 T.

Conclusion

Parallel imaging allows for improved vessel visualization in dual‐stack coronary MRA, given shorter temporal delays between navigator, T2Prep, and the actual image acquisitions, and thus considerably facilitates simultaneous acquisition of high‐resolution angiograms of the left and right coronary systems. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2005;21:443–448. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.