Current status of 3-T cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging

Continued advances in radiofrequency hardware and tailored software have, in recent times, greatly increased the power and performance of magnetic resonance imaging for noninvasive evaluation of cardiovascular diseases. Magnetic resonance imaging can uniquely be manipulated to trade temporal resolution and spatial resolution against each other, depending on whether detailed structural or functional information is required. However, to date, a number of cardiovascular magnetic resonance applications have been somewhat limited due to signal-to-noise ratio constraints, reflecting the narrow imaging window imposed by physiological cardiac motion. By increasing the operating field strength from 1.5 to 3 T, it is possible (in principle) to double the signal-to-noise ratio, which in turn may be "traded" for improvements in spatial resolution, coverage, or imaging speed. In this context, the development of parallel imaging has set the stage for impressive performance improvements in contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance angiography at 3 T. Indeed, one could argue that without parallel acquisition, the bang for the buck in going from 1.5 to 3 T would be limited. In this paper, we discuss the current status of 3-T magnetic resonance imaging for cardiovascular imaging, considering the relative gains and limitations relative to 1.5 T.