Free‐breathing, non‐ECG, simultaneous myocardial T1, T2, T2, and fat‐fraction mapping with motion‐resolved cardiovascular MR multitasking

• Published in: Magnetic resonance in medicine Vol. 88; no. 4; pp. 1748 - 1763
• Main Authors: Cao, Tianle, Wang, Nan, Kwan, Alan C., Lee, Hsu‐Lei, Mao, Xianglun, Xie, Yibin, Nguyen, Kim‐Lien, Colbert, Caroline M., Han, Fei, Han, Pei, Han, Hui, Christodoulou, Anthony G., Li, Debiao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hoboken Wiley Subscription Services, Inc 01-10-2022
• Subjects: cardiac MRI; Correlation coefficient; Correlation coefficients; EKG; Electrocardiography; free‐breathing; Image acquisition; Image reconstruction; Mapping; MR multitasking; multiparametric mapping; Multitasking; Reproducibility; Temporal resolution; Tensors; tissue characterization
• ISSN: 0740-3194; 1522-2594
• DOI: 10.1002/mrm.29351

Purpose
To develop a free‐breathing, non‐electrocardiogram technique for simultaneous myocardial T1, T2, T2*, and fat‐fraction (FF) mapping in a single scan.
Methods
The MR Multitasking framework is adapted to quantify T1, T2, T2*, and FF simultaneously. A variable TR scheme is developed to preserve temporal resolution and imaging efficiency. The underlying high‐dimensional image is modeled as a low‐rank tensor, which allows accelerated acquisition and efficient reconstruction. The accuracy and/or repeatability of the technique were evaluated on static and motion phantoms, 12 healthy volunteers, and 3 patients by comparing to the reference techniques.
Results
In static and motion phantoms, T1/T2/T2*/FF measurements showed substantial consistency (R > 0.98) and excellent agreement (intraclass correlation coefficient > 0.93) with reference measurements. In human subjects, the proposed technique yielded repeatable T1, T2, T2*, and FF measurements that agreed with those from references.
Conclusions
The proposed free‐breathing, non‐electrocardiogram, motion‐resolved Multitasking technique allows simultaneous quantification of myocardial T1, T2, T2*, and FF in a single 2.5‐min scan.