title: Correction of through-plane deformation artifacts in stimulated echo acquisition mode cardiac imaging.
abstract: Attempts to use a stimulated echo acquisition mode (STEAM) in cardiac imaging are impeded by imaging artifacts that result in signal attenuation and nulling of the cardiac tissue. In this work, we present a method to reduce this artifact by acquiring two sets of stimulated echo images with two different demodulations. The resulting two images are combined to recover the signal loss and weighted to compensate for possible deformation-dependent intensity variation. Numerical simulations were used to validate the theory. Also, the proposed correction method was applied to in vivo imaging of normal volunteers (n = 6) and animal models with induced infarction (n = 3). The results show the ability of the method to recover the lost myocardial signal and generate artifact-free black-blood cardiac images.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
authors.forename: Ahmed S
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: Fahmy
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stuber
authors.forename: Nael F
authors.initials: NF
authors.lastname: Osman
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016477:Artifacts; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003287:Contrast Media; D004285:Dogs; D019786:Gadolinium DTPA; D006321:Heart / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000473:pathology
chemical_list: D003287:Contrast Media; D019786:Gadolinium DTPA