Precision of myocardial contour estimation from tagged MR images with a "black-blood" technique.
OBJECTIVE
The authors determined whether blood presaturation of tagged magnetic resonance (MR) images affects identification of left ventricular endocardial borders.


METHODS
Three healthy volunteers underwent MR imaging performed with a breath-hold segmented spoiled gradient-recalled-echo sequence with tissue tagging. Two saturation pulses (in the basal and apical regions) were used to generate black-blood images. Manual segmentation of endocardial contours on black-blood and white-blood images was performed independently by five observers.


RESULTS
Endocardial borders were better identified on black-blood images compared with white-blood images, especially in the early systolic phases. Interobserver variability in contour estimation was significantly higher for white-blood images (P < .001) and was twice that for corresponding black-blood images during early systole. Contour variability appeared to be affected mainly by tag-to-myocardium contrast (P = .009) and myocardium-to-chamber contrast (P = .05).


CONCLUSIONS
Blood presaturation of tagged MR images improves reliability of contour segmentation.
Croisille
P
P
Department of Radiology, Hopital Cardiovasculaire et Pneumologique Louis Pradel, Lyon, France.
Guttman
M A
MA
Atalar
E
E
McVeigh
E R
ER
Zerhouni
E A
EA
D000328:Adult; D001769:Blood; D003116:Color; D004699:Endocardium / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D005260:Female; D006321:Heart / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D019028:Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Cine / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D015588:Observer Variation; D010210:Papillary Muscles / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D012044:Regression Analysis; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013599:Systole