Fusion of cine magnetic resonance and contrast-enhanced first-pass magnetic resonance data in patients with coronary artery disease: a feasibility study.
OBJECTIVE
The left ventricle (LV) myocardial wall contractibility can be evaluated using cine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in a qualitative or quantitative manner. Meanwhile, myocardial perfusion can be assessed using contrast-enhanced first-pass MRI. The authors propose a method of automatically fusing the complementary information from these two cardiac MRI modalities into one single image, from which a match or mismatch between contraction and perfusion could be extracted.


METHODS
The authors developed a registration algorithm based on the combined use of the global affine transformation and intrinsic landmarks to match images from the same sequence or from two imaging sequences. Contraction and perfusion information was fused by combining a myocardial contour image and a parametric image of the slope of the intensity-time curve, respectively. The fusion paradigm was applied to four patients' data as a demonstration of feasibility of the proposed approach and as a preliminary evaluation.


RESULTS
Cine MR and contrast-enhanced MR images were well aligned. The contractibility of the LV was displayed by the myocardial contour image. The parametric slope image was consistent with the known coronary artery status of each patient. The combined contraction-perfusion representation of the LV showed the correspondence between regional LV contraction and myocardial perfusion at a one slice level.


CONCLUSIONS
Left ventricle contraction and myocardial perfusion can be represented conjointly in one single fused image. The fusion paradigm should be evaluated for a larger number of patients to evaluate the clinical relevance of this approach in assessing coronary artery disease.
Dromigny-Badin
A
A
CREATIS-CNRS Research Unit UMR 5515 affiliated to INSERM, Villeurbanne, France. dromigny@creatis.insa-lyon.fr
Zhu
Y M
YM
Magnin
I
I
Revel
D
D
D000465:Algorithms; D003287:Contrast Media; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003331:Coronary Vessels / Q000503:physiopathology; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D019028:Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Cine; D009200:Myocardial Contraction; D016277:Ventricular Function, Left
D003287:Contrast Media