Highly accelerated cardiac MRI using iterative SENSE reconstruction: initial clinical experience

Abstract

To evaluate the qualitative and quantitative performance of an accelerated cardiovascular MRI (CMR) protocol that features iterative SENSE reconstruction and spatio-temporal L1-regularization (IS SENSE). Twenty consecutively recruited patients and 9 healthy volunteers were included. 2D steady state free precession cine images including 3-chamber, 4-chamber, and short axis slices were acquired using standard parallel imaging (GRAPPA, acceleration factor = 2), spatio-temporal undersampled TSENSE (acceleration factor = 4), and IS SENSE techniques (acceleration factor = 4). Acquisition times, quantitative cardiac functional parameters, wall motion abnormalities (WMA), and qualitative performance (scale: 1-poor to 5-excellent for overall image quality, noise, and artifact) were compared. Breath-hold times for IS SENSE (3.0 ± 0.6 s) and TSENSE (3.3 ± 0.6) were both reduced relative to GRAPPA (8.4 ± 1.7 s, p < 0.001). No difference in quantitative cardiac function was present between the three techniques (p = 0.89 for ejection fraction). GRAPPA and IS SENSE had similar image quality (4.7 ± 0.4 vs. 4.5 ± 0.6, p = 0.09) while, both techniques were superior to TSENSE (quality: 4.1 ± 0.7, p < 0.001). GRAPPA WMA agreement with IS SENSE was good (κ > 0.60, p < 0.001), while agreement with TSENSE was poor (κ < 0.40, p < 0.001). IS SENSE is a viable clinical CMR acceleration approach to reduce acquisition times while maintaining satisfactory qualitative and quantitative performance.

Prognosis in patients with coronary heart disease and breath-holding limitations: a free-breathing cardiac magnetic resonance protocol at 3.0 T

“…In the study, CCMR imaging was not performed on patients who could not hold their breath for an extended amount of time since the CCMR acquisitions required multiple breath-holds to avoid respiratory image artifacts [ 22 , 23 ]. Also, to achieve sufficiently high spatial and/or temporal resolutions during CCMR imaging, segmented k-space data are acquired over multiple heartbeats resulting in segmented data acquisitions that are prone to motion artifacts, leading to suboptimal image quality.…”

Golden‐Angle Radial MRI: Basics, Advances, and Applications

“…Indeed, 2D Cartesian sampling can be more robust toward various system imperfections and it has now been combined with compressed sensing for routine clinical use. [83][84][85][86] However, 2D Cartesian sampling only allows for 1D acceleration along the phase-encoding direction, and without further modification, it does not allow for self-navigation.…”

Cardiovascular imaging 2016 in the International Journal of Cardiovascular Imaging

“…The performance of an accelerated CMR protocol using iterative SENSE reconstruction and spatio-temporal L 1 -regularization (IS SENSE) was demonstrated [36]. In related work, Bogachkov et al [37] used this technique for right ventricular assessment.…”