Whole-heart coronary MR angiography using a 3D cones phyllotaxis trajectory.

Malavé MO, Baron CA, Addy NO, Cheng JY, Yang PC, Hu BS, Nishimura DG., Magn Reson Med. doi: 10.1002/mrm.27475. [Epub ahead of print], 2018 Oct 29

Investigators

Bob S. Hu, M.D.

Abstract

PURPOSE: To develop a 3D cones steady-state free precession sequence with improved robustness to respiratory motion while mitigating eddy current artifacts for free-breathing whole-heart coronary magnetic resonance angiography.

METHOD: The proposed sequence collects cone interleaves using a phyllotaxis pattern, which allows for more distributed k-space sampling for each heartbeat compared to a typical sequential collection pattern. A Fibonacci number of segments is chosen to minimize eddy current effects with the trade-off of an increased number of acquisition heartbeats. For verification, phyllotaxis-cones is compared to sequential-cones through simulations, phantom studies, and in vivo coronary scans with 8 subjects using 2D image-based navigators for retrospective motion correction.

RESULTS: Simulated point spread functions and moving phantom results show less coherent motion artifacts for phyllotaxis-cones compared to sequential-cones. Assessment of the right and left coronary arteries using reader scores and the image edge profile acutance vessel sharpness metric indicate superior image quality and sharpness for phyllotaxis-cones.

CONCLUSION: Phyllotaxis 3D cones results in improved qualitative image scores and coronary vessel sharpness for free-breathing whole-heart coronary magnetic resonance angiography compared to standard sequential ordering when using a steady-state free precession sequence.

Pubmed Abstract

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