Modified cine inversion recovery pulse sequence for the quantification of myocardial T1 and gadolinium partition coefficient

Purpose: To optimize and validate a modified cine inversion recovery sequence (MCine-IR) for myocardial T1 quantification and gadolinium partition coefficient (λ_Gd) estimation at 1.5 T. Materials and Methods: The original version of the cine inversion recovery sequence was modified to allow fully transverse magnetization recovery between two successive inversion pulses. Sixty heart phases were acquired from a number of heart cycles determined on a patient heart rate basis. Phantom studies were carried out to find the optimal effective TR for myocardial and blood pool T1 quantifications in pre- and postcontrast studies. Four patients with myocardial infarct (MI) and 22 dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) were investigated, as well as 11 healthy subjects used as controls. Results: Effective TR was identified to be 5000 msec and 2000 msec, respectively, for pre- and postcontrast studies. A longer precontrast (948 ± 102 msec) and shorter postcontrast (348 ± 27 msec) T1 in ischemic patients relative to DCM (815 ± 98 msec, P = 0.03 and 409 ± 42 msec, P = 0.001) were noted in delayed enhancement (DE) areas. In MI patients λ_Gd resulted higher than in DCM in DE areas (609 ± 167 vs. 422 ± 52, P = 0.01) but lower in segments not exhibiting DE (355 ± 100 vs. 398 ± 54, P = 0.02). Conclusion: It was feasible to measure T1 and λ_Gd with MCine-IR and the results were in good agreement with the literature. J. Magn. Reson. Imaging 2013;37:109-118. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.