Reproducibility of free-breathing cardiovascular magnetic resonance coronary angiography.
OBJECTIVE
Contemporary free-breathing non contrast enhanced cardiovascular magnetic resonance angiography (CMRA) was qualitatively and quantitatively evaluated to ascertain the reproducibility of the method for coronary artery luminal dimension measurements.


METHODS
Twenty-two healthy volunteers (mean age 32 +/- 7 years, 12 males) without coronary artery disease were imaged at 2 centers (1 each in Europe and North America) using navigator-gated and corrected SSFP CMRA on a commercial whole body 1.5T System. Repeat images of right (RCA, n = 21), left anterior descending (LAD, n = 14) and left circumflex (LCX, n = 14) coronary arteries were obtained in separate sessions using identical scan protocol and imaging parameters. True visible vessel length, signal-to-noise (SNR), contrast-to-noise ratios (CNR) and the average luminal diameter over the first 4 cm of the vessel were measured. Intra-observer, inter-observer and inter-scan reproducibility of coronary artery luminal diameter were determined using Pearson's correlation, Bland-Altman analysis and intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC).


RESULTS
CNR, SNR and the mean length of the RCA, LAD and LCX imaged for original and repeat scans were not significantly different (all p > 0.30). There was a high degree of intra-observer, inter-observer and inter-scan agreements for RCA, LAD and LCX luminal diameter respectively on Bland-Altman and ICC analysis (ICC's for RCA: 0.98. 0.98 and 0.86; LAD: 0.89, 0.89 and 0.63; LCX: 0.95, 0.94 and 0.79).


CONCLUSIONS
In a 2-center study, we demonstrate that free-breathing 3D SSFP CMRA can visualize long continuous segments of coronary vessels with highly reproducible measurements of luminal diameter.
Greil
Gerald F
GF
Department of Pediatric Cardiology, University of Tuebingen, Tuebingen, Germany.
Desai
Milind Y
MY
Fenchel
Michael
M
Miller
Stephan
S
Pettigrew
Roderic I
RI
Sieverding
Ludger
L
Stuber
Matthias
M
D000328:Adult; D017023:Coronary Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D003331:Coronary Vessels / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results