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Updated: May 7, 2026
Cardiac Magnetic Resonance for the Evaluation of Suspected Cardiac Thrombus: Conventional and Emerging Techniques
Published on: June 11, 2019
Towards elimination of the dark-rim artifact in first-pass myocardial perfusion MRI: removing Gibbs ringing effects
Behzad Sharif1, Rohan Dharmakumar, Troy LaBounty
1Biomedical Imaging Research Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA; Department of Biomedical Sciences, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California, USA.
Purpose:
Subendocardial dark-rim artifacts (DRAs) remain a major concern in first-pass perfusion (FPP) myocardial MRI and may lower the diagnostic accuracy for detection of ischemia. A major source of DRAs is the "Gibbs ringing" effect. We propose an optimized radial acquisition strategy aimed at eliminating ringing-induced DRAs in FPP.
Theory And Methods:
By studying the underlying point spread function (PSF), we show that optimized radial sampling with a simple reconstruction method can eliminate the oscillations in the PSF that cause ringing artifacts. We conducted realistic MRI phantom experiments and in vivo studies (n = 12 healthy humans) to evaluate the artifact behavior of the proposed imaging scheme in comparison to a conventional Cartesian imaging protocol.
Results:
Simulations and phantom experiments verified our theoretical expectations. The in vivo studies showed that optimized radial imaging is capable of significantly reducing DRAs in the early myocardial enhancement phase (during which the ringing effect is most prominent and may obscure perfusion defects) while providing similar resolution and image quality compared with conventional Cartesian imaging.
Conclusion:
The developed technical framework and results demonstrate that, in comparison to conventional Cartesian techniques, optimized radial imaging with the proposed optimizations significantly reduces the prevalence and spatial extent of DRAs in FPP imaging.
Insights
Optimized radial MRI acquisition significantly reduces dark-rim artifacts (DRAs) in first-pass perfusion (FPP) imaging. This new method improves diagnostic accuracy for detecting myocardial ischemia by eliminating Gibbs ringing effects.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging
- Medical Imaging Physics
Background:
- Subendocardial dark-rim artifacts (DRAs) are a significant challenge in first-pass perfusion (FPP) myocardial MRI.
- These artifacts, often caused by Gibbs ringing, can reduce the accuracy of ischemia detection.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose and evaluate an optimized radial acquisition strategy for FPP MRI.
- The goal is to eliminate Gibbs ringing-induced DRAs and improve diagnostic performance.
Main Methods:
- Investigated the point spread function (PSF) to develop an optimized radial sampling and reconstruction method.
- Evaluated the technique using MRI phantom experiments and in vivo studies on 12 healthy humans, comparing it to conventional Cartesian imaging.
Main Results:
- Simulations and phantom experiments confirmed the theoretical predictions.
- In vivo studies demonstrated a significant reduction in DRAs during the early myocardial enhancement phase with the optimized radial method.
- The proposed method maintained comparable image resolution and quality to conventional Cartesian imaging.
Conclusions:
- The developed optimized radial imaging technique effectively reduces the prevalence and spatial extent of DRAs in FPP MRI.
- This approach offers a significant improvement over conventional Cartesian techniques for reducing artifacts in myocardial perfusion imaging.
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