Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 19, 2026
Cardiac Magnetic Resonance Imaging at 7 Tesla
Published on: January 6, 2019
Improved artery delineation in dual-stack coronary magnetic resonance angiography using parallel imaging at 3 T
Michael E Huber1, Sebastian Kozerke, Peter Boesiger
1Institute for Biomedical Engineering, ETH and University Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland.
Purpose:
To improve vessel sharpness and T2 preparation (T2Prep) in dual-stack three-dimensional coronary magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) by shortening the time delays between the magnetization preparation pulses and the imaging stacks using sensitivity encoding (SENSE) at 3 T.
Materials And Methods:
By combining dual-stack three-dimensional coronary MRA with the parallel imaging technique SENSE at 3 T, the acquisition duration of each three-dimensional imaging stack was shortened by a factor of 2. The proposed technique was implemented and tested in experiments with a moving phantom and in measurements on six healthy volunteers.
Results:
The time delay between the navigator, T2Prep, and second imaging stack was reduced by 37%, relative to conventional dual-stack angiography without parallel imaging. This enabled the achievement of comparable high-vessel sharpness values for the left and the right coronary arteries relative to values known from conventional single-stack three-dimensional coronary MRA at 3 T.
Conclusion:
Parallel imaging allows for improved vessel visualization in dual-stack coronary MRA, given shorter temporal delays between navigator, T2Prep, and the actual image acquisitions, and thus considerably facilitates simultaneous acquisition of high-resolution angiograms of the left and right coronary systems.
