title: Fast simultaneous noncontrast angiography and intraplaque hemorrhage (fSNAP) sequence for carotid artery imaging.
abstract: To propose a fast simultaneous noncontrast angiography and intraplaque hemorrhage (fSNAP) sequence for carotid artery imaging.
  
  
  
  The proposed fSNAP sequence uses a low-resolution reference acquisition for phase-sensitive reconstruction to speed up the scan, and an inversion recovery acquisition with arbitrary k-space filling order to generate similar contrast to conventional SNAP. Four healthy volunteers and eight patients were recruited to test the performance of fSNAP in vivo. The lumen area quantification, muscle-blood CNR, IPH-blood CNR, lumen SNR, and standard deviation and intraplaque hemorrhage (IPH) detection accuracy were compared between fSNAP and SNAP.
  
  
  
  By using a low-resolution reference acquisition with 1/4 matrix size of the full-resolution reference scan, the scan time of fSNAP was 37.5% less than that of SNAP. A high agreement of lumen area measurement (ICC = 0.97, 95% CI: 0.96-0.99) and IPH detection (Kappa = 1) were found between fSNAP and SNAP. Also, no significant difference was found for muscle-blood CNR (P = 0.25), IPH-blood CNR (P = 0.35), lumen SNR (P = 0.60), and standard deviation (P = 0.46) between the two techniques.
  
  
  
  The feasibility of fSNAP was validated. fSNAP can improve the imaging efficiency with similar performance to SNAP on carotid artery imaging. Magn Reson Med 77:753-758, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Shuo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Jia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ning
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xihai
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Clinical Sites Research Program, Philips Research North America, Briarcliff Manor, New York, USA.
authors.forename: Jinnan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Zechen
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.|Department of Radiology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
authors.forename: Chun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Center for Biomedical Imaging Research, Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Huijun
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002339:Carotid Arteries / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D016893:Carotid Stenosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D005260:Female; D006470:Hemorrhage / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D018810:Magnetic Resonance Angiography / Q000379:methods*; D008297:Male; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: MR angiography; SNAP; carotid artery; intraplaque hemorrhage; phase-sensitive