Quantitative myocardial perfusion with a hybrid 2D simultaneous multi-slice sequence.

Area of Science:

• Cardiovascular Imaging
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)
• Myocardial Perfusion Assessment

Background:

• Quantitative myocardial blood flow (MBF) assessment is crucial for diagnosing and managing cardiovascular diseases.
• Traditional 3D stack-of-stars (SoS) acquisitions provide quantitative perfusion data but can be time-consuming.
• Developing faster, efficient MRI techniques for myocardial perfusion is an ongoing area of research.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a novel 2D simultaneous multi-slice (SMS) myocardial perfusion acquisition technique.
• To directly compare the quantitative performance of the 2D SMS method against a published 3D SoS acquisition.

Main Methods:

• A hybrid saturation recovery radial 2D SMS sequence was developed for MBF quantification.
• Validation involved alternating heartbeats between the 2D SMS and 3D SoS acquisitions in dog and human studies.
• Quantitative MBF analysis was performed using a compartment model for both sequences.

Main Results:

• Acquiring data every other beat minimally impacted perfusion change estimations for both 2D SMS and 3D SoS.
• Quantitative MBF values from 2D SMS and 3D SoS were comparable in rest studies (0.69 ± 0.16 vs 0.69 ± 0.15 ml/g/min).
• Comparable MBF values were also observed in stress studies (2D SMS: 1.28 ± 0.22 vs 3D: 1.30 ± 0.24 ml/g/min).

Conclusions:

• The hybrid radial 2D SMS sequence provides quantitative myocardial first-pass perfusion imaging results similar to 3D SoS.
• The 'every-other-beat' acquisition strategy minimally affected perfusion value estimations.
• This 2D SMS technique shows promise as an efficient alternative for quantitative myocardial perfusion assessment.