Bi Xiaoming, Carr James C, Li Debiao
Department of Radiology, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Northwestern University, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Magn Reson Med. 2007 Jul;58(1):1-7. doi: 10.1002/mrm.21224.
T(1)-shortening contrast agents have been used to improve the depiction of coronary arteries with breath-hold magnetic resonance angiography (MRA). The spatial resolution and coverage are limited by the duration of the arterial phase of the contrast media passage. In this study we investigated the feasibility of acquiring free-breathing, whole-heart coronary MRA during slow infusion of the contrast media (0.3 ml/s) for prolonged blood signal enhancement time. Ultrashort TR (3 ms) and parallel data acquisition were used to allow the whole-heart MRA in approximately 5 min. A newly approved gadolinium (Gd)-based high T(1) relaxivity contrast agent, gadobenate dimeglumine (Gd-BOPTA), was used and coronary MRA was performed on a whole-body 3 Tesla (T) system to improve the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Results from eight volunteers demonstrate that this coronary MRA method is capable of imaging the whole heart in 4.5 +/- 0.6 min. Major coronary arteries are well depicted with high SNR (42.4 +/- 12.5) and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR; 27.1 +/- 7.6).
T1缩短型造影剂已被用于通过屏气磁共振血管造影（MRA）改善冠状动脉的显示。空间分辨率和覆盖范围受造影剂通过动脉期持续时间的限制。在本研究中，我们探讨了在缓慢注射造影剂（0.3 ml/s）以延长血液信号增强时间期间获取自由呼吸全心冠状动脉MRA的可行性。使用超短TR（3 ms）和平行数据采集，以在约5分钟内完成全心MRA。使用一种新批准的基于钆（Gd）的高T1弛豫率造影剂钆贝葡胺（[Gd-BOPTA]2-），并在全身3特斯拉（T）系统上进行冠状动脉MRA以提高信噪比（SNR）。八名志愿者的结果表明，这种冠状动脉MRA方法能够在4.5±0.6分钟内对全心进行成像。主要冠状动脉显示良好，具有高SNR（42.4±12.5）和对比噪声比（CNR；27.1±7.6）。
