Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 8, 2026
Three-Dimensional Phase Resolved Functional Lung Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Published on: June 21, 2024
Free-breathing pediatric cardiac dark-blood imaging with reverse double inversion-recovery and single-shot deep
Yixin Emu1, Quanli Shen2, Qiong Yao2
1National Engineering Research Center of Advanced Magnetic Resonance Technologies for Diagnosis and Therapy, School of Biomedical Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
Background:
Dark-blood T2-weighted fast spin-echo (DB-FSE) is sensitive to motion, leading to signal dropout artifacts and ghosting artifacts in free-breathing pediatric cardiac imaging, which severely impairs its diagnostic quality. Here, we aimed to fulfill high-resolution motion-robust edema assessment during free-breathing by combining reverse double inversion recovery (RDIR) and single-shot DB-FSE based on artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted compressed sensing (ACS) reconstruction.
Methods:
This prospective study included 20 healthy children and 47 pediatric patients. Three imaging techniques were compared: routine multi-shot DB-FSE based on double inversion recovery (MS-DIR), multi-shot DB-FSE based on RDIR (MS-RDIR), and single-shot DB-FSE based on RDIR (SS-RDIR) with ACS reconstruction. These methods were compared via quantitative metrics, including total acquisition time, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), and qualitative metrics, including myocardial visibility, ghosting artifacts, and overall quality.
Results:
In healthy children, the total acquisition time (seconds) of SS-RDIR (64.8±21.8) was significantly less than those of MS-DIR (222.5±69.3, P<0.001) and MS-RDIR (234.0±64.1, P<0.001). The SNR and CNR were comparable (P=0.094 for SNR and P=0.054 for CNR). Ghosting artifacts were significantly reduced in SS-RDIR (4.70±0.18) compared to MS-DIR (3.95±0.28, P<0.001) and MS-RDIR (3.97±0.31, P<0.001), whereas overall quality was improved in SS-RDIR (4.42±0.19) compared to MS-DIR (3.87±0.27, P=0.004) and MS-RDIR (3.95±0.34, P=0.010). In patients, SS-RDIR significantly reduced the total acquisition time compared to MS-DIR (62.1±24.0 vs. 216.6±74.2, P<0.001) and MS-RDIR (229.8±79.2, P<0.001), with comparable SNR (P=0.065) and CNR (P=0.089). SS-RDIR also showed less severe ghosting artifacts (4.94±0.11) compared to MS-DIR (3.77±0.29, P<0.001) and MS-RDIR (3.78±0.34, P<0.001), and better quality (3.96±0.52) than MS-DIR (3.61±0.40, P=0.023).
Conclusions:
SS-RDIR with ACS reconstruction offers substantially shorter scan time and superior image quality than traditional multi-shot techniques. This approach enhances clinical workflow and patient comfort, facilitating a broader application of DB-FSE in pediatric cardiac imaging.
