Accelerated coronary MRA by simultaneous acquisition of multiple 3D stacks.
The implementation and first in vivo results of a novel coronary magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) protocol allowing simultaneous acquisition of multiple geometrically independent 3D imaging stacks are presented. Each imaging stack is acquired in a separate cardiac phase using an individual magnetization preparation and navigator-based gating and prospective motion correction. Each stack covers one of the main coronary vessels. Thus, an improvement of scan efficiency was achieved, which was used in this study to reduce total scan time at standard image quality. Experiments performed in healthy volunteers and in patients using a two-stack approach yielded a total scan time reduction of 50% with an image quality equivalent to standard single-stack coronary MRA.
Manke
D
D
Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Karlsruhe, Karlsruhe, Germany.
Börnert
P
P
Nehrke
K
K
Nagel
E
E
Dössel
O
O
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D017023:Coronary Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D023921:Coronary Stenosis / Q000175:diagnosis; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged