Two-dimensional multishot echo-planar coronary MR angiography.
This work presents a two-dimensional (2D) multishot echo-planar imaging (EPI) technique for magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) of individual coronary arteries in a 17-heartbeat breath-hold. Conventional 2D and 3D segmented gradient-echo (GRE) coronary MRA requires repetitive excitation of the same slice or slab within each cardiac cycle, which can result in reduced blood signal and in motion artifacts. Two-dimensional multishot EPI can address these limitations by eliminating multiple excitations per cardiac cycle, using large flip-angle excitations, markedly reducing the data acquisition window, and performing oblique multislice 2D imaging. The goal of this study was to assess the feasibility of breath-hold 2D multishot EPI for multislice coronary MRA and to demonstrate its reliability by consistently acquiring high-quality images of the coronary arteries in a series of 16 volunteers.
Slavin
G S
GS
Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota 55905, USA.
Riederer
S J
SJ
Ehman
R L
RL
D000328:Adult; D003331:Coronary Vessels / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D017352:Echo-Planar Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006801:Humans; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008875:Middle Aged