TY - JOUR
T1 - Free-breathing inner-volume black-blood imaging of the human heart using two-dimensionally selective local excitation at 3 T
AU - Abd-Elmoniem, Khaled Z.
AU - Barmet, Christoph
AU - Stuber, Matthias
PY - 2012/9
Y1 - 2012/9
N2 - Black-blood fast spin-echo imaging is a powerful technique for the evaluation of cardiac anatomy. To avoid fold-over artifacts, using a sufficiently large field of view in phase-encoding direction is mandatory. The related oversampling affects scanning time and respiratory chest motion artifacts are commonly observed. The excitation of a volume that exclusively includes the heart without its surrounding structures may help to improve scan efficiency and minimize motion artifacts. Therefore, and by building on previously reported inner-volume approach, the combination of a black-blood fast spin-echo sequence with a two-dimensionally selective radiofrequency pulse is proposed for selective "local excitation" small field of view imaging of the heart. This local excitation technique has been developed, implemented, and tested in phantoms and in vivo. With this method, small field of view imaging of a user-specified region in the human thorax is feasible, scanning becomes more time efficient, motion artifacts can be minimized, and additional flexibility in the choice of imaging parameters can be exploited.
AB - Black-blood fast spin-echo imaging is a powerful technique for the evaluation of cardiac anatomy. To avoid fold-over artifacts, using a sufficiently large field of view in phase-encoding direction is mandatory. The related oversampling affects scanning time and respiratory chest motion artifacts are commonly observed. The excitation of a volume that exclusively includes the heart without its surrounding structures may help to improve scan efficiency and minimize motion artifacts. Therefore, and by building on previously reported inner-volume approach, the combination of a black-blood fast spin-echo sequence with a two-dimensionally selective radiofrequency pulse is proposed for selective "local excitation" small field of view imaging of the heart. This local excitation technique has been developed, implemented, and tested in phantoms and in vivo. With this method, small field of view imaging of a user-specified region in the human thorax is feasible, scanning becomes more time efficient, motion artifacts can be minimized, and additional flexibility in the choice of imaging parameters can be exploited.
KW - 2D-selective RF pulses
KW - black-blood
KW - local excitation
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U2 - 10.1002/mrm.23305
DO - 10.1002/mrm.23305
M3 - Article
C2 - 22161817
AN - SCOPUS:84863572815
SN - 0740-3194
VL - 68
SP - 822
EP - 829
JO - Magnetic resonance in medicine
JF - Magnetic resonance in medicine
IS - 3
ER -