Toward single breath-hold whole-heart coverage coronary MRA using highly accelerated parallel imaging with a 32-channel MR system.
Coronary MR angiography (CMRA) is generally confined to the acquisition of multiple targeted slabs with coverage dictated by the competing constraints of signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), physiological motion, and scan time. This work addresses these obstacles by demonstrating the technical feasibility of using a 32-channel coil array and receiver system for highly accelerated volumetric breath-hold CMRA. The use of the 32-element array in unaccelerated CMRA studies provided a baseline SNR increase of as much as 40% over conventional cardiac-optimized phased array coils, which resulted in substantially enhanced image quality and improved delineation of the coronary arteries. Modest accelerations were used to reduce breath-hold durations for tailored coverage of the coronary arteries using targeted multi-oblique slabs to as little as 10 s. Finally, high net accelerations were combined with the SNR advantages of a 3D steady-state free precession (SSFP) technique to achieve previously unattainable comprehensive volumetric coverage of the coronary arteries in a single breath-hold. The merits and limitations of this simplified volumetric imaging approach are discussed and its implications for coronary MRA are considered.
Niendorf
Thoralf
T
Applied Science Laboratory, GE Healthcare Technologies, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. niendorf@rad.rwth-aachen.de
Hardy
Christopher J
CJ
Giaquinto
Randy O
RO
Gross
Patrick
P
Cline
Harvey E
HE
Zhu
Yudong
Y
Kenwood
Gontran
G
Cohen
Shmuel
S
Grant
Aaron K
AK
Joshi
Sanjay
S
Rofsky
Neil M
NM
Sodickson
Daniel K
DK
D017023:Coronary Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D003331:Coronary Vessels; D006321:Heart / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D012119:Respiration