title: Black-blood steady-state free precession (SSFP) coronary wall MRI for cardiac allografts: a feasibility study.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To assess the hypothesis that steady-state free procession (SSFP) allows for imaging of the coronary wall under the conditions of fast heart rate in heart transplantation (HTx) patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  With the approval of our Institutional Review Board, 28 HTx patients were scanned with a 1.5T scanner. Cross-sectional black-blood images of the proximal portions of the left main artery, left anterior descending artery, and right coronary artery were acquired with both a 2D, double inversion recovery (DIR) prepared turbo (fast) spin echo (TSE) sequence and a 2D DIR SSFP sequence. Image quality (scored 0-3), vessel wall area, thickness, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR, vessel wall), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR, wall-lumen) were compared between TSE and SSFP.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The overall image quality of SSFP was higher than TSE (1.23 ± 0.95 vs. 0.88 ± 0.69, P < 0.001). SSFP had a higher coronary wall SNR (20.1 ± 8.5 vs. 14.9 ± 4.8, P < 0.001) and wall-lumen CNR (8.2 ± 4.6 vs. 6.8 ± 3.7, P = 0.005) than TSE.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Black-blood SSFP coronary wall MRI provides higher image quality, SNR, and CNR than traditional TSE does in HTx recipients. It has the potential to become an alternative means to noninvasive imaging of cardiac allografts.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
authors.forename: Kai
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Lin
authors.forename: Xiaoming
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Bi
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Kirsi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Taimen
authors.forename: Biao
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Debiao
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Carr
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D016027:Heart Transplantation; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D059629:Signal-To-Noise Ratio; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric