A Spatially-selective Implementation of the Adiabatic T2Prep Sequence for Magnetic Resonance Angiography of the Coronary Arteries

摘要

In coronary magnetic resonance angiography, a magnetization-preparation scheme for T2-weighting (T2Prep) is widely used to enhance contrast between the coronary blood-pool and the myocardium. This pre-pulse is commonly applied without spatial selection to minimize flow sensitivity, but the non-selective implementation results in a reduced magnetization of the in-flowing blood and a related penalty in signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR). It is hypothesized that a spatially-selective T2Prep would leave the magnetization of blood outside the T2Prep volume unaffected, and thereby lower the SNR penalty. To test this hypothesis, a spatially-selective T2Prep was implemented where the user could freely adjust angulation and position of the T2Prep slab to avoid covering the ventricular blood-pool and saturating the in-flowing spins. A time gap of 150ms was further added between the T2Prep and other pre-pulses to allow for in-flow of a larger volume of unsaturated spins. Consistent with numerical simulation, the spatially-selective T2Prep increased in vivo human coronary artery SNR (42.3±2.9 vs. 31.4±2.2, n=22, p<0.0001) and contrast-to-noise-ratio (18.6±1.5 vs. 13.9±1.2, p=0.009) as compared to those of the non-selective T2Prep. Additionally, a segmental analysis demonstrated that the spatially-selective T2Prep was most beneficial in proximal and mid segments where the in-flowing blood volume was largest compared to the distal segments.