Purpose: To examine whether T2* effects reduce the accuracy of arterial input function (AIF) measurement by the dual-sequence method.
Materials and Methods:The dual-sequence method obtains a low-resolution AIF image and high-resolution myocardial images in each cycle, with suitable T1 weightings. It was modified to assess T2* effects in the low-resolution AIF image (4.8 ϫ 4.8 ϫ 10 mm voxels, TE ϭ 0.58 msec) by minimizing T1 weighting in that sequence, while the myocardial sequence remained T1-weighted. In 10 patients who underwent perfusion MRI scans (0.5 M Magnevist, 0.1 mmol/kg, 15-ml flush, 7 mL/second right antecubital) the blood signal in the left ventricle (LV) was measured at the bolus peak and compared with the first cycle's fresh magnetization signal.
Results:The bolus peak measured 98% Ϯ 4% (mean Ϯ SD, N ϭ 20) of the value before contrast agent arrival. MEASURING MYOCARDIAL PERFUSION requires undistorted arterial input function (AIF) and high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) myocardial tissue response function measurements. The dual-sequence method (1,4) obtains these measurements in the same cardiac cycle, while the dual-bolus method (2,3) uses separate low-and high-dose first passes for the AIF and myocardial measurements, respectively. The dual-bolus and dual-sequence methods agreed reasonably well in previous in vivo studies (1), and the dual-bolus method has been validated against microspheres as the gold standard (2).
ConclusionIn each cardiac cycle, the dual-sequence method (1) acquires a low-resolution image of the left ventricular (LV) blood using a fast (50 msec) sequence with low T1-sensitivity for the AIF, followed by a high-resolution high-T1-sensitivity sequence to acquire images for the myocardial tissue response. The larger voxels of the fast AIF sequence are expected to have more T2* dephasing than those of a typical myocardial perfusion sequence. Larger voxels have more distance over which B0-inhomogeneity may dephase the signal. Conversely, the shorter TE and faster echo sampling of the AIF sequence should reduce T2* effects. It was therefore necessary to test for T2* effects in vivo.The purpose of this work was to examine whether T2* effects in large pixels reduce the accuracy of AIF measurement, which would distort myocardial perfusion measurement by the "dual-sequence" method (1).
MATERIALS AND METHODSA Siemens Sonata 1.5T (Numaris 4, VA21) was used with a 12-channel cardiac array coil placed around the patient's chest (six anterior and six posterior elements).In 10 patients referred for assessment of myocardial perfusion, three short-axis myocardial slices were collected on each of 50 cardiac cycles, starting with a breath-hold at end-expiration, imaging the first pass (0.5M Magnevist, 0.1 mmol/kg, and then 15-ml saline flush at 7 mL/second, 18-gauge right antecubital). Adenosine stress (140 g/kg/min) perfusion imaging was performed for clinical examination and the perfusion imaging was repeated at rest after at least 20 minutes. The 50-msec rapid AIF sequence was run at each R-wave w...