ECG-gated 23Na-MRI of the human heart using a 3D-radial projection technique with ultra-short echo times

Pathological changes in tissue often manifest themselves in an altered sodium gradient between intra- and extracellular space due to a malfunctioning Na+-K+ pump, resulting in an increase in total sodium concentration in ischaemic regions. Therefore, 23Na-MRI has the potential to non-invasively differentiate viable from non-viable tissue by detecting concentration changes of intra- and extracellular sodium. As the in vivo sodium signal shows a bi-exponential T2 decay, with a short component of less than 1 ms, the accurate quantification of the total sodium content requires imaging techniques with ultra-short echo times (TE) below 0.5 ms. A 3D-radial projection technique has been developed which allows the acquisition of ECG-triggered sodium images of the human heart with a TE of 0.4 ms. With this pulse sequence 23Na-MRI volunteer measurements of the head or the heart were performed in less than 18 min on a 1.5-T clinical scanner with an isotropic resolution of 10 mm3. The signal to noise ratio of the radial projection technique is twofold higher than that of a Cartesian gradient echo pulse sequence (TE = 3.2 ms). Radial 23Na-MRI provides a tool for clinical studies, aiming at the differentiation of viable and non-viable tissue.