Effect of slice excitation profile on ungated steady state cardiac perfusion imaging

In cardiac perfusion imaging, choice of flip angle is an important factor for steady state acquisition. This work focuses on presenting an analytical framework for understanding how non-ideal slice excitation profiles affect contrast in ungated 2D steady state cardiac perfusion studies, and to study a technique for estimating flip angle that maximizes enhanced/unenhanced myocardial contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) in single slice and multi-slice acquisitions. A numerical simulation of ungated 2D golden ratio radial spoiled gradient echo (SPGR) was created that takes into consideration the actual (Bloch simulated) slice excitation profile. The effect of slice excitation profile on myocardial CNR as a function of flip angle was assessed in phantoms and in-vivo. For fast RF pulses, the flip angle that yields maximum CNR (considering the actual slice excitation profile) was considerably higher than expected, assuming an ideal excitation. The simulation framework presented accurately predicts the flip angle yielding maximum CNR when the actual slice excitation profile is taken into consideration. The prescribed flip angle for optimal contrast in ungated 2D steady-state SPGR cardiac perfusion studies can vary significantly from that calculated when an ideal slice excitation profile is assumed. Consideration of the actual slice excitation can yield a more optimal flip angle estimate in both the single slice and multi-slice cases.