Extending Cardiac Functional Assessment with Respiratory-Resolved 3D Cine MRI

Area of Science:

• Cardiovascular Imaging
• Respiratory Physiology
• Medical Physics

Background:

• Respiration significantly influences cardiac function and ventricular dynamics.
• Accurate assessment of cardiac function requires accounting for cardiorespiratory motion.
• Current MRI techniques often struggle to fully resolve cardiorespiratory interactions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a 5D MRI approach for cardiorespiratory-resolved 3D imaging.
• To investigate the influence of respiration on cardiac ventricular function using 3D motion tracking.
• To assess cardiac function parameters at specific respiratory phases (end-expiration and end-inspiration).

Main Methods:

• Developed a highly-accelerated, 2.5-minute sparse MR protocol for continuous cardiac image acquisition.
• Employed 3D motion tracking and a 3D image deformation algorithm to extract heart displacement during respiration.
• Clustered acquired data into respiratory phases and measured cardiac function parameters (ESV, EDV, SV, EF) in 15 healthy volunteers.

Main Results:

• No significant differences in cardiac function parameters (ESV, EDV, SV, EF) between end-expiration and end-inspiration.
• Derived respiratory motion parameters (depth, distribution) showed significant correlations with volume-based cardiac function parameters.
• Respiratory motion parameters exhibited gender-specific variations.

Conclusions:

• The proposed 5D cardiac MRI approach enables evaluation of cardiac function during specific respiratory phases.
• This method facilitates the investigation of respiratory variability's effects on cardiac function.
• The findings suggest potential for improved assessment of cardiorespiratory dysfunction.