Rapid data acquisition procedures for cardiac MRI

The authors have developed techniques which may be performed on any standard clinical imager and produce complete data sets of 16 time frames in each of eight contiguous slices in a total acquisition time of 1024 heartbeats. The limits inherent in the acquisition procedure are outlined. The authors have found that 3.0 mm in-plane resolution is sufficient, and consequently, they need only perform 64 phase-encoding steps in a transaxial orientation and 128 in a coronal to produce a sufficiently large field of view to avoid aliasing in all but large patients. They have implemented these techniques using synchronous gating in both a spin echo (RF refocused) and a gradient reversal single pulse (gradient refocused) acquisition procedure. The former will suppress signal from flowing blood, thus producing a clean image of the cardiac anatomy, and that the latter will produce an image dominated by the inflowing blood due to flow related enhancement, possibly revealing variations in the flow due to abnormalities.<>