Evaluation of thoracic aortic dissection using breath-holding cine MRI.
OBJECTIVE
Our goal was to determine if breath-hold cine MRI in transaxial planes can be used for the evaluation of thoracic aortic dissection instead of conventional cine MRI since rapid imaging is required in this clinical setting.


METHODS
Twelve patients with thoracic aortic dissection were imaged using a 1.5 T imager. Breath-hold images were acquired with fast cine MR sequence (TR/TE = 9/2.8, 20 degrees flip angle) using segmented k-space data acquisition. Conventional non-breath-hold cine MR images (TR/TE = 22/7.5, 35 degrees flip angle, 2 averages) were taken with flow and respiratory compensation.


RESULTS
Sharpness of edges of the vessels on fast cine MR images was better than that on conventional cine MR images in 34 (57%) of 60 images. Inhomogeneous blood signal in aortic lumen due to motion artifacts was found in 2 (3%) of fast cine MR images and in 15 (25%) of conventional cine MR images. The contrast-to-noise ratios of fast cine MR images were significantly better than those of conventional cine MR images (26.4 +/- 9.1 vs. 18.5 +/- 10.1; p < 0.05) when the region of interest for noise was placed to include ghosting artifacts.


CONCLUSIONS
Breath-hold cine MRI is a rapid technique that gives high quality images of thoracic aortic dissection and can provide a diagnosis in < 10 min of imaging time.
Sakuma
H
H
Department of Radiology, University of California San Francisco 94143-0628, USA.
Bourne
M W
MW
O'Sullivan
M
M
Merrick
S H
SH
Ullyot
D J
DJ
Chatterjee
K
K
Shimakawa
A
A
Foo
T K
TK
Higgins
C B
CB
D000368:Aged; D000784:Aortic Dissection / Q000175:diagnosis*; D001013:Aorta, Thoracic / Q000473:pathology / Q000503:physiopathology; D017545:Aortic Aneurysm, Thoracic / Q000175:diagnosis*; D016477:Artifacts; D001769:Blood; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D019028:Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Cine / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009068:Movement; D012039:Regional Blood Flow; D012119:Respiration; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013997:Time Factors