MR cardiac imaging using breath-hold gradient echo acquisition

Despite the progress in fast scan MRI techniques, it has not been possible to routinely image the heart rapidly enough so as to collect all image data during one breath-hold. Cardiac images are therefore degraded by respiratory motion during several minutes of data acquisition. Fast scan images also have limited SNR and inadequate myocardium-to-chamber contrast. The purpose of this work was to address these limitations by blood suppression, centric or centric-like view ordering, and data acquisition in diastole with 2DFT and 3DFT gradient echo acquisition. High resolution black-blood cardiac images were acquired. The endocardial surface is very well delineated. In a series of 13 volunteer studies these methods have consistently provided superior quality visualization of intraventricular structures. We believe the images are a significant improvement over previous results generated with gradient echo and echo-planar techniques, and rival high quality gated spin-echo results.