Perfusion cardiovascular magnetic resonance: Comparison of an advanced, high-resolution and a standard sequence

Journal of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance

Research

Tobias Schaeffter¹  Shazia Hussain¹  Eike Nagel¹  Andreas Schuster¹  Amedeo Chiribiri¹  Masaki Ishida¹  Geraint Morton¹ 

[1] King’s College London British Heart Foundation (BHF) Centre of Excellence; National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust; Wellcome Trust and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Medical Engineering Centre; Division of Imaging Sciences, and Biomedical Engineering; The Rayne Institute, St. Thomas’ Hospital, London, United Kingdom;

关键词: Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance;    Perfusion Imaging;    Improve Image Quality;    Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Study;    Perfusion Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1532-429X-14-34

 received in 2011-11-21, accepted in 2012-06-09,  发布年份 2012

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundTechnical advances in perfusion cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR), particularly accelerated data acquisition methods, allow myocardial perfusion imaging with unprecedented spatial resolution. However, it is not clear how implementation of these recent advances affects perfusion image quality, signal and contrast to noise ratios (SNR & CNR) and the occurrence of important artefacts in routine clinical imaging. The objective of this study was therefore to compare a standard and an advanced, high-resolution perfusion sequence.MethodsA standard ultrafast gradient echo perfusion sequence (st-GrE) was compared with an advanced kt-accelerated steady state free precession sequence (ktBLAST-SSFP) at 1.5 T in healthy volunteers (n = 16) and in patients (n = 32) with known or suspected coronary artery disease. Volunteers were imaged with both sequences at rest and patients underwent stress and rest imaging with either st-GrE or ktBLAST-SSFP prior to X-ray coronary angiography.A blinded expert scored image quality and respiratory artefact severity and also classified patients for the presence of CAD. The extent, transmurality and duration of dark rim artefacts (DRA) as well as signal to noise (SNR) and contrast to noise (CNR) were quantified.ResultsIn normal hearts ktBLAST-SSFP imaging resulted in significantly improved image quality (p = 0.003), SNR (21.0 ± 6.7 vs. 18.8 ± 6.6; p = 0.009), CNR (15.4 ± 6.1 vs. 14.0 ± 6.0; p = 0.034) and a reduced extent (p = <0.0001) and transmurality (p = 0.0001) of DRA. In patients ktBLAST-SSFP imaging resulted in significantly improved image quality (p = 0.012), and a reduced extent (p = <0.0001), duration (p = 0.004) and transmurality (p = <0.0001) of DRA. Sensitivity and specificity for the detection of CAD against X-ray angiography was comparable with both sequences. There was a non-significant trend towards increased respiratory artefacts with ktBLAST-SSFP in both patients and volunteers.ConclusionsAdvanced high resolution perfusion CMR using a k-t-accelerated SSFP technique results in significantly improved image quality, SNR and CNR and a reduction in the extent and transmurality of DRA compared to a standard sequence. These findings support the use of advanced perfusion sequences for clinical perfusion imaging however further studies exploring whether this results in improved diagnostic accuracy are required.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Morton et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.