Improved in vivo measurement of myocardial transverse relaxation with 3 Tesla magnetic resonance imaging

✍ Scribed by Jared Guthrie Cobb; Cynthia B. Paschal

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2009
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 710 KB
• Volume: 30
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1053-1807
• DOI: 10.1002/jmri.21877

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

Purpose

To develop practical methods at 3 Tesla (T) for measuring myocardial transverse relaxation in normal human myocardium.

Materials and Methods

Ten healthy volunteers were investigated with four multi‐echo, turbo spin‐echo (TSE) methods. Each method traded acquired phase encoding lines per image for echo‐image sample points obtained along the T~2~ decay curve. Four multi‐echo turbo field‐echo (TFE) methods were also tested. The TFE methods highlighted differences between achievable receiver bandwidth and echo time constraints versus the number of sample points obtained along the T decay curve.

Results

Measured transverse relaxation values were consistent in reported means across all scan methods. T~2~ for the ventricular septum was measured as 58.8 ± 7.7 ms (N = 10). T for the ventricular septum was 31.6 ± 5.8 ms (N = 10). The variation of mean T~2~ or T within an region of interest improved significantly with increases in acquired echoes. Therefore, four or more echoes may provide for clear distinctions between regions of altered tissue composition within a subject.

Conclusion

These results suggest that the 4‐echo methods are best suited for measuring variations in transverse relaxation values in the mid‐ventricular septum. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2009;30:684–689. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.