Georg Spinner1, Constantin von Deuster1,2, Christian Torben Stoeck1, and Sebastian Kozerke1
1Institute for Biomedical Engineering, ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland, 2Division of Imaging Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, London, United Kingdom
In vivo cardiac Intravoxel Incoherent Motion Imaging
(IVIM) is particularly challenging due to low signal-to-noise ratio, cardiac
and respiratory motion. To address the limitation, a spin-echo (SE) based
sequence employing motion-compensated diffusion gradients during cardiac
contraction was used in combination with Bayesian Shrinkage Prior (BSP) inference.
In this work, parameter maps of four volunteers (two slices) are compared to
standard segmented least squares (LSQ) regression. Bayesian inferred IVIM parameter
maps showed reduced intra-subject variation relative to LSQ. It is concluded
that the proposed method is a promising alternative to map myocardial perfusion without the need for contrast agent administration.
