Assessment of Valvular Regurgitation Using Cine Magnetic Resonance Imaging Coupled with Phase Compensation Technique: Comparison with Doppler Color Flow Mapping

To elucidate whether or not a newly developed technique in cinematic-displayed (cine) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can improve the semiquantitative evaluation of valvular regurgitant flow, 20 patients with valvular lesions were studied. Three pulse sequences of cine MRI, ie, standard, short echo time (TE), and rephasing scans, were compared with reference obtained by Doppler color flow mapping. Short TE technique and rephasing scan technique improved image quality remarkably as compared with standard technique. Each of the three cine MRI techniques showed good correlation with the Doppler method (p< 0.001). However, short TE and rephasing scan techniques gave a faithful estimation of the extent as compared with the Doppler method, whereas standard technique overestimated the regurgitation. Thus, cine magnetic resonance imaging with phase compensation technique can be utilized for the semiquantitative assessment of valvular regurgitation in a manner similar to that of Doppler color flow mapping.