Three-dimensional free breathing whole heart cardiovascular magnetic resonance T1 mapping at 3 T

Abstract

BackgroundThis study demonstrates a three-dimensional (3D) free-breathing native myocardial T1 mapping sequence at 3 T.MethodsThe proposed sequence acquires three differently T1-weighted volumes. The first two volumes receive a saturation pre-pulse with different recovery time. The third volume is acquired without magnetization preparation and after a significant recovery time. Respiratory navigator gating and volume-interleaved acquisition are adopted to mitigate misregistration. The proposed sequence was validated through simulation, phantom experiments and in vivo experiments in 12 healthy adult subjects.ResultsIn phantoms, good agreement on T1 measurement was achieved between the proposed sequence and the reference inversion recovery spin echo sequence (R2 = 0.99). Homogeneous 3D T1 maps were obtained from healthy adult subjects, with a T1 value of 1476 ± 53 ms and a coefficient of variation (CV) of 6.1 ± 1.4% over the whole left-ventricular myocardium. The averaged septal T1 was 1512 ± 60 ms with a CV of 2.1 ± 0.5%.ConclusionFree-breathing 3D native T1 mapping at 3 T is feasible and may be applicable in myocardial assessment. The proposed 3D T1 mapping sequence is suitable for applications in which larger coverage is desired beyond that available with single-shot parametric mapping, or breath-holding is unfeasible.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12968-018-0487-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Cardiac T1 mapping: Techniques and applications

“…Motivated by a clinical desire for greater spatial coverage and intrinsic higher signal‐to‐noise, there has been renewed interest in 3D techniques . These techniques may allow for characterization of the thin, complex structure of the right ventricle (RV) or atria that have been difficult to image with existing techniques.…”

FASt single‐breathhold 2D multislice myocardial T1 mapping (FAST1) at 1.5T for full left ventricular coverage in three breathholds

“…3D or advanced 2D multislice techniques can be used to achieve native myocardial T 1 mapping with full LV coverage . 3D breathheld myocardial T 1 mapping approaches may need to compromise between spatial resolution and/or artifact level due to limited breathhold duration and limited acquisition window within the cardiac cycle .…”

“…[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20] 3D breathheld myocardial T 1 mapping approaches may need to compromise between spatial resolution and/or artifact level due to limited breathhold duration and limited acquisition window within the cardiac cycle. 13,18 On the other hand, 3D 14,15,17,19,20 and 2D multislice 16 freebreathing myocardial T 1 mapping require long scan times and advanced motion correction strategies, which can result in reduced map quality and increased intersegment variability compared with standard breathheld techniques such as MOLLI. 17 In this work, we sought to develop and characterize a novel FASt single-breathhold 2D multislice myocardial T 1 mapping (FAST1) for myocardial T 1 mapping with full LV coverage in three breathholds at 1.5T.…”

3D whole‐heart isotropic‐resolution motion‐compensated joint T1/T2 mapping and water/fat imaging

“…Recently, 3D free breathing T 1 and T 2 mapping techniques have been proposed to overcome the need for breath-holds, increase spatial resolution, and minimize through-plane motion artifacts. [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23] Some of these approaches were designed for postcontrast application; thus, a direct extension to precontrast acquisition would not be straightforward. 14,15 Acquisition of 3D free-breathing native T 1 or T 2 maps has been demonstrated using 1D diaphragmatic navigators, but this approach leads to long and unpredictable scan time, limiting spatial resolution and clinical adoption.…”

“…14,15 Acquisition of 3D free-breathing native T 1 or T 2 maps has been demonstrated using 1D diaphragmatic navigators, but this approach leads to long and unpredictable scan time, limiting spatial resolution and clinical adoption. 14,16,17,19 1D and 2D self-navigation or fat image navigators enabled the acquisition of 3D T 1 or T 2 maps with 100% respiratory scan efficiency 18,21,24 ; however, recovery heart beats for magnetization recovery affect the total scan time, leading to a tradeoff between spatial resolution 18 and acquisition time. 21 A matching approach for T 2 map generation was adopted to avoid the need of pauses for magnetization recovery, enabling the acquisition of high-resolution 3D T 2 maps within a scan time of ~10 min or less, 22,23 relying on 2D image navigators and undersampled acquisition; however, these approaches do not provide T 1 quantification.…”