Sonia Nielles-Vallespin1, Peter Speier1, Peter Weale2, Saurabh Shah2, Edgar Mueller1
1Cardiovascular MR, Siemens AG Healthcare Sector, Erlangen, Germany; 2Cardiovascular MR, Siemens AG Healthcare Sector, Chicago, USA
A free-breathing navigator-gated isotropic 3D radial double echo UTE TrueFISP sequence has been implemented and used to acquire isotropic whole heart coronary images of healthy volunteers with a total scan time of about 13 min. This method provides state-of-the-art TrueFISP whole heart coronary images plus UTE images at almost no extra cost, only slightly longer TR, opening up the possibility to obtain a new contrast for a range of cardiovascular MR applications, such as detection of calcification in atherosclerotic plaque, depiction of fibrosis in the heart or visualization of iron labeled cells.